Atlantis Returns
by Firefall Bangenthump
Summary: The unexpected reappearance of Milo Thatch, an old friend long thought lost, sends Doppler and Amelia into the reaches of the Etherium once more in search of another ancient and legendary planet: Atlantis. However, unbeknownst to them, a malignant remnant of the more recent past draws near - one that may threaten Atlantis' very existence.
1. Chapter 1

Disney's _Treasure Planet_ and _Atlantis: The Lost Empire_ are, of course, the two great underappreciated gems of the studio's early-2000s canon. Both are better than the box offices ever recognised. This story was co-written with the wonderful megers67, to whom I owe a great debt for her patience, advice, editorial guidance, general encyclopaedic knowledge of all things to do with both films, and more besides. It seemed to us that the two films were remarkably compatible - and we hope you agree.

Our story begins shortly after the events of the _Battle at Procyon_ video game...

* * *

The University of Montressor was a low, ranging sprawl of shingle-roofed brick buildings. Some were red, more were grey and all were in a heavy, old-fashioned architectural style that tended towards ponderousness and solidity. As was usually the case, a light drizzle was falling and the few windows that were still lit so late at night were speckled with raindrops. The large copper observatory dome of the School of Astronomy and Astrophysics was running with countless small rivulets that pooled on the roof beneath and then trickled out of the mouths of the gargoyles. Below one of them, a light was on in an upper-floor study, the window of which was at least half-obscured by irregular piles of books and folders. Behind them, Dr. Delbert Doppler was poring over tables of data spread out on his desk. A cup of tea had long since gone cold and been relegated to a spare corner of the desk where a number of others were already stacked.

"You're working late, Dr. D."

Doppler looked up over his spectacles at the cheery face of Mrs. Smedley, the School's matronly housekeeper, who was standing in his doorway with the heavy, ribbed canvas tube of a vacuum cleaner slung over her shoulder.

"Oh. Yes." He smiled back. "Well, I've been asked to look into this as a matter of urgency, so...here I am."

"Must be important, whatever it is," said Mrs. Smedley. "I heard the Head of the School mentioning those term papers that need to be graded by the end of the week-"

"Gravitational anomalies in the Timaeus Cluster," said Doppler hurriedly, though not before he glanced guiltily at a pile of papers on a swivel chair in front of his desk. "Something's making the stars out there move strangely. Or so it seems, anyway."

"Well, I'm sure you'll work it all out." Mrs. Smedley glanced around his office. "So… I suppose I'll come back to vacuum later?"

"That would be best, yes." Doppler watched her go, towing the large, four-wheeled body of the vacuum cleaner with its rattling bellows and hydraulic pumps behind her and then leaned back in his chair, removing his glasses and rubbing his tired eyes as he glanced up at the clock on his wall, which was reading closer to midnight than he liked to see.

"Dr. D?" The housekeeper was back.

"Yes, Mrs. Smedley?" He put his glasses back on wearily.

"You have a visitor. Shall I show him in?"

"A visitor? At this hour?" Doppler frowned. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. But he says it's terribly important."

"It had better be. What is it?"

"He can only say what it is to you."

"I don't have time for games, Mrs. Smedley-"

"He said he knows." The housekeeper shrugged.

Doppler sighed. "Oh, very well. Show him in."

Mrs. Smedley bustled off again. Doppler retrieved his burgundy coat from where it had slipped off the back of his chair and pulled it on. He straightened his ascot and checked his reflection in the small piece of window he could see through the volumes stacked against it, when he saw a flicker of movement behind him.

"Thank you, Mrs. Smedley," he said, trying to sound authoritative as he turned around. "You can leave us now."

"So, uh...Delbert. I don't know if you remember me..."

It was a young voice and Doppler initially assumed it to be an errant or inquisitive student. His first glance at his visitor did little to dispel the notion – standing in his doorway was a gangly-looking young human male with a thin but boyish face, large round spectacles and a short mop of dark blonde hair. He was wearing a battered, dark green greatcoat over threadbare khaki clothes and had a much-abused leather satchel slung over one shoulder. Doppler racked his brain to try to recall any students – current or former – who fit the description.

"Er," he said, hoping to buy his memory some time.

"I mean, I get it if you don't. It's been a while, after all."

And then something clicked into place. Young as the man first seemed, the tenor of his voice and the set of his features revealed him to be somewhat older. He wasn't a student – not even one of his post-graduates. Doppler blinked and stared in astonishment.

" _Milo Thatch_?"

"That's me." The man smiled nervously. "Look, I know I didn't call ahead or anything but I really need to speak to you."

"Of-of course. Come in. Sit down!" Doppler stood hastily and looked around his office for a spare seat, eventually just shovelling the pile of unmarked term papers off the one in front of the desk.

"Thanks." Milo closed the door behind him. "Like I said, I know it's been a while..."

"At least five years? Six?" Doppler nodded. "You resigned from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology and left on that expedition to find the lost planet of Atlantis."

"I appreciate the fact that you didn't preface the word 'expedition' with the word 'crazy'," Milo grinned. "Most people did, as I recall."

"But we thought you were dead!" Doppler sat back down. "There was no word… and only six of the expedition crew ever made it back. They said that everyone else was missing, presumed lost. They never said where, or how, though."

"They wouldn't," said Milo, taking his own seat. "They were sworn to secrecy. And so was I, for that matter, which makes my being here a little… odd, really."

"Why's that?"

Milo took a deep breath and looked across the table at Doppler.

"What if I told you… that we _found_ Atlantis?"

Doppler stared again. "Excuse me?"

Milo laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, I know, it sounds like bad fiction. A brave expedition setting off to find an ancient, legendary missing planet, finding it but only a few survivors making it back home…. It's kind of hard to believe a story like that. I don't blame you if you don't."

Doppler thought about Milo's description for a moment, and then grinned. He leaned forwards on his desk, adjusting his glasses as he cleared his throat.

"Try me," he said.

* * *

The staff common room was empty, the cracked leather couches sitting in quadrangles around the low coffee tables across which were still strewn a variety of publications. Doppler turned away from the samovar on a nearby bench, handing a steaming cup of tea to Milo, who was perched on the arm of a couch.

"It's quite a story," Milo said. "I, uh, don't really know where to start. There's so much to say I'm afraid I'm going to start rambling like a madman."

"How about the day you handed your resignation to Pro-Vice-Chancellor?" said Doppler. "That was the last anyone saw of you."

Milo chuckled. "Yeah, funny thing. I didn't actually hand him my resignation. I threatened to, if he didn't listen to my proposal. Which he didn't, of course. But I didn't go through with it because he threw me out before I could give it to him."

"Threw you out of his office?"

"His carriage." Milo grinned ruefully. "I may have been… a bit persistent in my approach. But I needed that proposal to go through. I was so sure I'd finally found the key to Atlantis."

"You were looking for...what was it called? The Shepherd's Journal?" Doppler sat forward. "That old spacer's logbook that claimed to show where Atlantis was. I remember you saying that your grandfather had been looking for it."

"That's right. But it turned out someone had already found it," said Milo. "You ever hear of Preston Whitmore?"

"The shipping magnate? Of course. He owned the biggest line in the Empire." Doppler frowned. "What about him?"

"Well, he's the one who found the journal. Turns out he and my grandpa were best friends back in the day." Milo grinned. "Strange how things turn out. He'd hired this crew of explorers, even built a ship specifically to go and find Atlantis. He offered me a job. I couldn't say no. I had to at least try to prove that grandpa had been right."

"And it turns out… he was?" Doppler looked on expectantly.

"More right than even he knew." Milo nodded. "You see, Atlantis doesn't just _exist_ , Delbert. It _lives_. There's people there."

"What?" Doppler's tea slopped as he started with surprise. "But it's been missing for… thousands of years!"

"Caught us by surprise, too." Milo nodded animatedly. "You see, the city has a kind of a power source. That's what's kept it going all these years. It powers the city, preserves it and all its people. It's not like a solar sail or a steam engine, it's a kind of a-a life force. And… that's where the trouble started. Because that crew Mr. Whitmore hired turned out not to be the most trustworthy bunch."

"I think I know what you mean," said Doppler, thinking of his own misadventures with the Treasure Planet voyage.

"Turned out they just wanted to loot Atlantis for money. But when they found the Atlantean power source, they went after that instead. Even though I told them it would mean genocide. The destruction of the planet and everyone still living there." Milo's face fell. "It got… difficult. Some of them couldn't go through with it so they helped me to stop the others."

"That can't have been easy." Doppler couldn't help remembering his own terror during the mutiny on the _Legacy_. But where he had run – admittedly under Amelia's direction – Milo seemed to have stood and fought. And won.

"Yeah, well, you do what you have to do." Milo looked away. "Anyway. Afterwards, the crew who helped me went home."

"And the crew who… didn't help you?"

"Didn't make it home."

"Oh." Doppler nodded quietly. "I understand. So you stayed behind?"

"I had to. The Atlanteans...they've _survived_ for thousands of years but that's all. They haven't developed. In fact they've lost a lot of what they _had_ developed. They'd forgotten so much of their own history and culture. They couldn't even read their own language any more. So I stayed behind to teach them. And besides, I met...someone there."

"Oh, yes?"

"Yeah...the, er...the princess." Milo blushed. "Her name's Kida. She and I sort of hit it off, you could say."

"I see." Doppler sought for words. "Congratulations, I suppose."

"Thanks." Milo smiled. "Though she's the queen now. Her father… well, the crew killed him while they were ransacking the place."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Doppler. "It must have been… a very trying situation."

"Yeah, you could say that." Milo ran a hand through his hair. "Anyway, the crew who helped me, they promised not to tell anybody what we'd found in case other people came looking. Turns out it's for the best that everyone thought Atlantis was a myth. And the Atlanteans… well, they were pretty happy not to be found. So they went back into hiding."

"How do you 'hide' an entire planet?" Doppler stared.

"Well, it's not really an entire planet any more," said Milo. "More like a - a piece of one with a city on top. It's kind of a long story. There are a lot of long stories about Atlantis. I don't even know if I've told you properly. There's so much to tell."

"So I can see." Doppler put his tea aside. He was paying too much attention to the story anyway.

"Anyway, they 'hide' by-by putting Atlantis into another dimension. I know it sounds crazy, and don't ask me how they do it. I'm a linguist and an anthropologist, not a physicist. But they figured out a way of putting the city into a sort of little pocket of reality where it's the only thing that exists. That's why Atlantis disappeared in the first place." Milo sighed. "It's kind of sad. They used to be this great power. Greater than the Procyons. Even greater than the Empire. Now there's just one city left. And they need our help. That's why I've come back. And I came to you because you're the one person I know who wouldn't laugh at me."

Doppler blinked. "You want me to help you to...help Atlantis?"

"That's about the size of it." Milo smiled nervously. "So… what do you say?"

"I think I'd like to know just what you're asking of me first," said Doppler. "Actually, no, first - not to be disrespectful, but - "

"You need some proof that I'm not making all this up?"

Doppler sighed. "I was trying to find a polite way to say that."

"I figured." Milo grinned and reached for his satchel. "Don't worry, Delbert, I'm not offended. You'd have to be an idiot _not_ to ask."

He rummaged in the satchel and produced a thick book, which he placed on the table between them and opened about halfway through.

"This is the Shepherd's Journal," he said. "It's really just a spacer's log about their travels. It doesn't get interesting until about here, when they start alluding to Atlantis as a real place rather than as just a myth. Now, I've got some notes here somewhere..."

Doppler watched as Milo casually tossed various items out of his satchel – a spare set of spectacles, a pocket handkerchief, one shoe – but his eyes widened as the young man produced a small gold sphere and put it on the table as he kept rummaging.

"What is that?" He leaned forwards slowly, polishing his glasses as his eyes widened in amazement, hardly daring to believe what they saw.

"Hm? Oh, that. It's just a kind of compass the Atlanteans make." Milo picked it up casually. "It shows you where you are relative to the current position of Atlantis. Let me show you."

Doppler's eyes only widened further as Milo manipulated the little ball, until it seemed to split open along its seams, a complex pattern of lines and circles on its surface suddenly glowing brightly and emitting a cloud of sparkling particles that swirled around and formed a sphere of their own in which now hovered a shimmering starfield.

"Oh, my..."

"Pretty remarkable, isn't it?" Milo grinned and snapped it closed, extinguishing the starfield in a blink. "Here, you can have a look if you like. My notes must be all the way down the bottom of the bag..."

Doppler took the sphere gingerly and held it up to the light. There was no mistaking it, or the intricate designs that marked the surface.

"What's wrong, Delbert?" Milo looked up at him curiously. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Several, in fact," Doppler murmured. "You said this device was from Atlantis?"

"That's right. Kida insisted I take it with me when I left. Why?"

"Because I've seen something exactly like it before," Doppler looked across the table at Milo. "This is...real, isn't it?"

Milo met his eyes and nodded seriously. "Absolutely. I wouldn't lie about this."

Doppler put the sphere back on the table. "Well...you might have come to ask me a question, but you may just have answered several of mine."

"You said you'd seen something like it?" Milo sat forward. "Can I ask where? Kida's so curious about the rest of the galaxy and she'd be thrilled to know that there are still Atlantean artefacts still out there."

Doppler thought about Treasure Planet and wondered whether she'd be as excited to know the use to which at least one of them had been put.

"I think," he said, "that I should introduce you to my wife."

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Delbert?" Milo was still hesitant even as they stood in the entrance hall of the Doppler manor.

"Of course." Doppler hung his raincoat on its hook. "I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise."

"Yeah, but..." Milo scratched the back of his neck. "Atlantis is meant to be a secret. There's only seven – well, eight now – people in the whole of the Empire who know about it. Telling the military about it could just create a whole bunch of problems..."

"Amelia is more experienced with this sort of thing than you might think," Doppler said. "She's not your typical naval officer. Like I told you on the way here, she was with me on Treasure Planet. And when we found that ancient starship. I trust her. Completely."

Milo nodded. "Well… I guess I have to as well, then."

"And besides," Doppler went on. "Given what you asked me to do, we're going to need some help..."

"Whatever you say, Delbert." Milo shrugged. "Lead on."

Doppler stepped past him and made his way up the corridor to the big polished door of the living room. It was ajar and he could hear high-pitched voices. Milo caught up with him and listened in surprise.

" _You have children?"_ he whispered.

"Four," Doppler nodded. "Er… I should probably have told you. Some of them can be a bit of a handful, so-"

"Delbert? Is that you?"

Amelia opened the door from the inside. She was wearing her blue dressing gown and had a large bundle over her shoulder which soon turned its head and broke into a smile at the sight of Doppler.

"Daddy's home!"

Doppler laughed as the blond-haired little kitten practically leapt out of her mother's arms and into his.

"Elizabeth! Hello! Yes, yes, I'm home." He grinned at Amelia. "Er… hello, darling."

"And hello to you, too." Amelia leaned on the doorframe and smiled at him before glancing at Milo. "And I assume you'll introduce me to your friend?"

"Of course." Doppler shifted Elizabeth, who was scrambling onto his shoulder in order to look at Milo. "Er. This is Dr. Milo Thatch, formerly of the University of Montressor's School of Archaeology and Anthropology. And Milo, this is Vice-Admiral Amelia, Crescentia Sector Commander."

"Despite current appearances. Dr. Thatch." Amelia held out her hand. "I assume that you're why my husband is late home tonight?"

"Er, yeah. At least in part." Milo shook her hand and tried to ignore the curious, thousand-watt emerald stare that Elizabeth was giving him over her father's shoulder. "Sorry about that. Had I known there was so much going on here to get back to…."

"And I was working back anyway on the Timaeus gravitational anomaly," said Doppler. "That was when Milo showed up."

"I'm sure you'll forgive me," Amelia looked at Milo, one eyebrow arched, "but I don't recall you. I take it that you're a colleague of Delbert's?"

"A colleague and an old friend," said Milo hurriedly. "But I've… been away for a few years."

"And we both need to talk with you, Amelia," said Doppler. "In private. And urgently."

"Can I come?" piped up Elizabeth.

Doppler looked pleadingly at Amelia, who took pity on him and hoisted the enthusiastic little felinid back. "No, kitten. I need you to stay with Mrs. Dunwoody and look after your brother and your sisters. Make sure none of them get into any trouble."

Elizabeth nodded. "Aye, aye."

Amelia chuckled. "There's a good spacer. I'll be with you shortly, gentlemen."

Doppler poked his head through the door to watch as Amelia returned Elizabeth to the care of his housekeeper, whose multiple independent arms were quite the blessing when it came to ministering to four small children, who were playing on the mat around her. He smiled at the sight of his family and looked up as Amelia rejoined them.

"Now, then," she said. "What could possibly be so important?"

* * *

The lights in Doppler's private study cast a warm, golden glow as if of candles. A large star chart had been unrolled on the desk as they talked. To Milo's surprise, Amelia hadn't spoken when he first mentioned Atlantis, merely casting an inquiring glance to Doppler, who had nodded. And that seemed to be enough to convince her to hear the rest of his extraordinary tale.

"So you're telling me that the race we knew as the Forefathers, who built Treasure Planet, are in fact alive and well and living on the lost planet of Atlantis?" she finally asked.

"Well… yes." Doppler nodded, noting the tone of scepticism in her voice. "I mean, the evidence is incontrovertible, I'd say. That compass of Milo's alone-"

"Ah, yes. And just where is Atlantis supposed to be, Dr. Thatch?" Amelia turned to Milo.

"Er," Milo fumbled with his compass, navigating through the three-dimensional starfield it projected. "Just here. For now."

"In the Timaeus Cluster," said Doppler. "Which I imagine explains the anomalous gravitational behaviour I've been studying in the stars there."

"So it just...popped back into existence?"

"Well, it's always existed," said Doppler. "It's just a question of where."

"The city can't stay hidden forever," Milo explained. "It has to come back into this reality periodically to recharge the Heart of Atlantis. That's why fresh references to Atlantis have kept cropping up over the centuries that the myths have been around. It comes back, a few spacers see it, they talk or write about it, word gets about. But it's always gone by the time anyone gets to looking for it. And so the legend lives on."

"Legend indeed," said Amelia wryly. "Just how many lost, legendary planets are there out there?"

"What? Oh. Well, it's a little hard to say. The basic element of the story's actually very common among spacefaring races," Milo scratched his head. "Of course, a lot of them actually share the same roots – Atlantis is a good example of that; it crops up in canons across the galaxy – so you'd have to do a lot of cross-referencing to be sure-"

"The question was purely rhetorical, Dr. Thatch," Amelia grinned. "Though I must congratulate you on educating me, as up until now I'd assumed my husband's field to be the most impenetrable of the sciences. I see it has very little on anthropology for the uninitiated."

"I just meant-"

Amelia held up a hand. "Do calm down, doctor. I meant no offence. But I would like to know just what I'm supposed to do with this information."

"They need our help," said Milo. "The Heart of Atlantis – the power source – needs recharging. That's why Atlantis came back. The only thing is...it takes a certain kind of star to power the Heart. And the one they've been tapping for thousands of years has burned out. So they sent me to find someone who might be able to find another one."

"Ah." Amelia nodded to Doppler. "I was wondering where you came into this, dear."

"From what Milo described, they need a special type of blue dwarf star," said Doppler. "Unfortunately it's a very _rare_ variant, so they're not easy to find."

Amelia grinned with understanding. "So you're telling me… you need a ship to go and find one?"

"Well… yes," Doppler admitted. "I know it's asking a lot on a very flimsy pretext, but-"

Amelia cut him off. "Lucky for you, then, that the Admiralty has ordered that matters relating to the Forefather civilisation be given high priority. I think the discovery of the Forefather civilisation itself counts in that category."

Doppler exhaled with relief. "So… you'll authorise an expedition?"

"I'll do better than that. I'll lead it myself." Amelia smiled fondly at her husband. "You know, I have a distinct memory of a previous time you approached me to arrange an expedition to go and chase down a legend."

Doppler smiled back. "The similarities haven't escaped me, either. But this time, _you'll_ be picking the crew."

"Damned right." Amelia winked. "So you needn't worry about mutiny or treachery this time, Dr. Thatch. I'll be bringing Battlefleet Crescentia's best."

"Er, a military expedition?" Milo raised a hesitant finger. "Only I'm not sure the Atlanteans will like that. They're kind of… opposed to the whole idea of a military, really."

"I'm not proposing to mobilise my entire fleet, Dr. Thatch – it'll be no bigger than it needs to be. But if what you're telling me is true," said Amelia firmly, "a civilisation so powerful that it was able to harness the _stars themselves_ as an energy source has just reappeared in Imperial space. The civilisation that built a network of portals enabling instant travel to any point in the galaxy. The consequences for the galactic balance of power are incalculable. And then there are my orders from the Admiralty. Signed under the hand of the First Star Lord himself. So yes, this is very much a military matter. And besides, if I may be flippant, if you didn't want military assistance you shouldn't have approached a military officer."

"That part was my idea," Doppler raised a hand.

"The Atlanteans don't want to stay here" said Milo quickly. "They just want to recharge the Heart and then they'll be off again for another few centuries or so. They don't want to upset the balance of power or whatever it is you're worried about."

"I'm pleased to hear it," said Amelia. "Nevertheless. This is how it must be. We can keep it as low-profile as possible. But it's my responsibility to safeguard the interests and welfare of every sentient being in this sector, doctor. I will not take chances with that. You're thinking of your world, and that's fine. But I have a sector to think of. Dozens of worlds and colonies to protect, with an empire of more than a hundred billion souls beyond that."

Milo sighed. "Well… I suppose I can explain it all to Kida. But it'll have to be very diplomatically handled. If you guys turn up waving guns around after what happened last time, things could get very… edgy."

"Then it's a good thing we'll have you along with us, isn't it?" Amelia smiled. "Aside from anything else, we'll need that device of yours to tell us where to go."

"When can we leave?" Doppler tried not to sound too eager, and failed spectacularly.

"It'll take some time to make the necessary arrangements," said Amelia, containing her amusement at his evident excitement. "Half of my fleet is still undergoing repairs after the Ironclad War and the armistice terms with the Procyons are still being implemented. But yes. I can hardly ignore this."

"Then… thank you, Admiral." Milo nodded. "We'll be saving lives. The Atlanteans are counting on us."

"Please don't take offence when I say that that's not necessarily my primary concern, doctor," said Amelia politely. "Nevertheless, if Atlantis is what you say it is...I can assure you that the Empire has no designs upon her."

"I'm glad to hear it." Milo sat in silence for a moment. "And can I make a suggestion? For the expedition, I mean."

"Of course," Amelia raised an eyebrow curiously.

"My friends… from the first expedition, I mean." Milo scratched his head. "Do you think we could contact them? I mean, they're the only other people in the galaxy who've been to Atlantis. And I'm sure they'd be a great help to us. Well, most of them. Some of them. One or two of them, at least."

Amelia shrugged. "We can try," she said. "Though it'd have to be done quietly. The last thing we need is to set rumours running about all this. It'll have to be handled with discretion."

"Whatever you need to do, Amelia," said Doppler.

"And of course, I can't promise results," Amelia looked at Milo. "For all I know, your companions are scattered all across the Empire. We may not even be able to find them all in time, let alone send and receive a reply."

"I understand, Admiral," Milo nodded and yawned. "Oh… pardon me…."

"No, no, it's alright." Doppler stood up. "You've had a long journey, no doubt. We can put you up in the guest bedroom on the ground floor if that's all right."

"Anything sounds good right now. Thanks, Delbert." Milo smiled and stood wearily. "I, er, suppose I'll see you tomorrow, Ame – Admiral?"

"Count upon it," Amelia smiled. "Good night, Dr. Thatch."

She watched Doppler escort Milo out of the room, and chuckled to herself when he looked back over his shoulder to silently mouth _thank you_ to her. She sat for a moment longer, looking out of the window at the night sky, where a few stars were now visible through a break in the clouds, wondering just what it was with bespectacled eccentrics and the mysteries of the universe.

"Here we go again," she murmured wryly. Then she stood, tied her dressing gown tighter about herself, and strode from the room. If her husband's friend was right, there was much to be done.


	2. Chapter 2

Doppler walked along the dockside in the bright sun, enjoying the clarity of the etherium after the cloud-swathed gloom of Montressor. Being on Crescentia always put him in a good mood – the coming and going of ships, the limitless expanse of sky – and the feeling of imminent adventure that spaceports always suggested to him. The military docks were towards the centre of the vast structure, almost shaded by the great terracotta dome of the Admiralty House, and guarded gates separated it from the hustle and bustle of the main streets and commercial districts but there was still a buzz of activity there. Elegant warships, ivory hulls trimmed with blue and gold livery, hung alongside their piers, and the shouts of officers occasionally rose above the background noise of sawing and hammering. Piles of timber in neat stacks stood along the docks awaiting the carpenters and a few sheer hulks were at work replacing masts – even so many weeks later, the fleet was still making good the extensive damage it had suffered defeating the Procyon assault on Parliament. Doppler checked the piece of paper Amelia had given him to guide him to her and hurried on. He soon found her standing at a railing at the beginning of a pier alongside another familiar felinid figure whom he recognised from her mane of blonde hair even at a distance.

"Good morning, Admiral." He joined them with a smile. "And to you, Lieutenant Mayflower. I hope I'm not late."

"Not late at all." Amelia nodded to him and smiled back. There was something about her manner which, despite her usual calm face and professional demeanour, indicated her own excitement and anticipation of the voyage to come – an alertness in her eyes and the points of her expressive ears.

"Hello, doctor," Aurora Mayflower returned his smile as well. The younger felinid, with her distinctive striped fur and lilac eyes, was Amelia's trusted flag-lieutenant, a personal aide and the navigator of her former flagship, the _Lyonesse_. The flagship was normally to be seen at anchor here, a magnificent, sleek warship, one of the most advanced and powerful ever built. But she was missing today – one of the many victims of the Procyons' treachery – and it was with some surprise that Doppler regarded the ship that appeared to be her replacement.

"Is that the one?" he asked.

"It is indeed," Amelia nodded.

A steady stream of spacers were labouring to load supplies onto a large vessel docked at the pier in front of them. It was undoubtedly a military vessel – she shared the same colours as the ships at the other berths and a Royal Navy ensign flew from the tallest of her four masts – but her size did not speak of laid-back power as it so often did with the Navy's fighting ships. Her bulk was stolid and heavy, accentuated by a large, almost semi-cylindrical bluff bow set below the forecastle. The name _Providence_ was emblazoned on its sides in brass letters. That a sturdy space tug was patiently drifting a short way behind the ship, tethered to it by thick cables, only emphasised the sense of unwieldiness and bulk.

"Oh." Doppler sought for words. "I see. That's one of your supply tenders, isn't it?"

"Is there a problem?" Amelia looked at him oddly.

"Oh, no. Nothing." Doppler shook his head. "It's just...not exactly the sort of ship I ever associated you with. After the _Legacy_ , the _Lyonesse_...I always assumed you preferred the more dashing kind of vessel."

"The best ship is the one that's right for the job," said Amelia. "A tender has stability, endurance, unsurpassed cargo capacity. And in deference to Dr Thatch's advice, it avoids any of the diplomatic complications that might arise if we arrive in a battleship."

"Of course." Doppler smiled. "You've thought of everything. As usual."

"She's not the _Lyonesse_ ," said Aurora wistfully. "But I'm keen to see what she can do just the same."

"My dear navigator," Amelia grinned. "I'm sure you'll have her handling like a longboat in no time. Shall we go aboard?"

Doppler looked around. "Is Milo here yet?"

"I'm afraid not," Aurora checked a clipboard she was carrying. "But he's still got a little time."

"He hasn't been here before." Doppler sighed anxiously. "I told him he could come with me but he said there was some shopping he needed to do."

"I'm sure he'll find his way," said Amelia. "You said he knew something about maps, didn't you? I'll send out the search parties if he isn't here by 1200."

The closer Doppler got to _Providence_ the more impressed he was. The tender was the best part of three hundred feet long and broad in the beam to accommodate enough supplies to keep a squadron of ships-of-the-line in space for weeks. Deck-mounted derricks reached over its tall sides to hoist pallets of cargo aboard. The Royal Marine sentries guarding the gangway snapped to attention and saluted as Amelia approached and returned the honour before stepping sure-footedly onto the first step. Doppler took a deep breath before he followed her.

"Remember to use both hands on the railings, doctor," said Aurora cheerfully. "One for yourself and one for the ship, as they say."

"Good advice," Doppler chuckled. "It would be rather unfortunate to put oneself out of commission now."

"Quite so. Especially you." Aurora stepped past him. "We're reliant on you to find us a star, remember?"

"I can hardly forget." Doppler followed her up the gangway. "Though I've been able to identify a few possible contenders from my ground observations."

"Just tell me where to go and I'll get us there." Aurora stepped onto the deck and sighed happily. "Ah...it's nice to feel ship's timbers under my feet again."

"You really have missed the _Lyonesse_ , haven't you?" Doppler smiled sympathetically as they made their way to the bridge. "Well, not to worry. I'm sure the odds of _this_ ship being destroyed by the Procyon armada are much more remote."

"Thank goodness." Aurora grinned and patted her left arm, where bandages were still visible at the cuff of her uniform, covering the splinter wound she'd received when the _Lyonesse_ had been destroyed. "I think I'm already down a couple of my nine lives because of that little affair."

There was a sudden crashing sound from the gangway, and they looked around to see Milo picking himself up off the deck and dusting himself down, an outsized backpack on his shoulders and various paraphernalia dangling from his belt and satchel. He recovered his hat and waved off a marine sentry who had moved to help him.

"No, no, thank you, I-I'm fine, really-"

"Welcome aboard, Dr Thatch," Amelia called down to him. "Though traditionally one is supposed to seek permission from the bridge."

"Oh. Right." Milo straightened up, put his hat on backwards, hurriedly corrected it, and tried to salute. "Er. Permission to come aboard, then?"

"Granted." Amelia nodded. "You can leave your baggage there, doctor. We'll have it taken to your cabin for you. Officer of the deck? See to it at once, would you."

"Thanks." Milo shrugged off the backpack and dropped his satchel with a clatter as a nearby midshipman began directing a pair of spacers to assist him. "That was all getting rather heavy."

"Naturally." Amelia smiled at the two doctors as Milo joined them on the bridge, taking in their flustered excitement, round spectacles and long coats and remembering the first time she had seen Doppler. "The two of you aren't related at all, are you?"

"What?" They both stared at her in confusion. She chuckled and shook her head.

"Never mind. Thinking of the past. Though I am rather curious as to what you're carrying there, Dr Thatch. I don't recall you hauling that much cargo when I first saw you, and Delbert did mention that you'd gone shopping."

"Well, yes." Milo scratched his head awkwardly. "I mean, Atlantis is great and all, but there are still things I miss from the Empire. I didn't exactly get an opportunity to take anything much with me the first time I went to Atlantis, so this time I figured I'd make up for it. And I guess I got a bit carried away."

"What in the worlds do you have in there, exactly?" Doppler watched the spacers struggling towards the companionway with Milo's backpack.

"Honestly? A lot of tea. And coffee." Milo grinned awkwardly. "Atlantis has things _similar_ to them but not _actually_ them. It's funny what you want when you don't have it. I mean, an anthropologist living amidst a lost and undiscovered civilisation should be in seventh heaven, but it's the little things you miss. I also packed a lot of charts, because Kida wants to compare them with ancient Atlantean ones. And I have quite a few books. Old favourites, mostly, but also ones about galactic history that I think Kida would like – I've been teaching her to read Standard. Her people have missed a few, well, thousand years' worth of current affairs."

"I suppose they would have some catching up to do," said Amelia. "But now you have everything you need?"

"Yeah. And, er, I'm sorry I'm late, too." Milo looked guilty. "I hope I haven't slowed you down."

"Not at all," Amelia glanced over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps coming up to the bridge. "Our consulting engineer was still hard at work in the engine room. You know her so I'm sure you'll understand."

"Consulting engineer?" Milo blinked. "Why would I know-ouch!"

Someone hit him, quite hard, in the shoulder. He span around angrily in time to receive another two, albeit softer, blows.

"Two for flinching," said a familiar, cheerful voice.

"Audrey?" Milo's eyes widened in surprise as he saw her.

"The one and only." Audrey Ramirez grinned. "Hey, Milo. Long time no see."

Milo laughed as they shared a welcoming embrace. Audrey was taller than he last remembered and her features were more mature, but there was no mistaking the mischief in her dark eyes – or the strength behind her punches. She was wearing an orange engineering boiler suit but had retained the floppy blue cap that Milo remembered so well.

"Well, you're the last person I expected to see here! Actually, no, Mole's the last person I expected to see here. But I didn't expect to see you here either. I mean...are you in the Navy now? What gives?"

"Me, take orders? No chance." Audrey grinned. "I mean, no offence, Admiral."

"None taken." Amelia smiled at Milo. "You'll recall you asked me to put out a call to your former companions? Well, it turned out that Ms Ramirez here was already on Montressor, of all the places."

"Working for some mining company near the north pole," Audrey explained. "Installing a new BWE they just shipped in. You know me, Milo. Just follow the machinery, right?"

"Fortunately, she was able to take early release from her contract," said Amelia. "And I thought it wouldn't hurt to have another Atlantis veteran along. I trust everything is in order down below?"

"Pretty much," replied Audrey. "Those old Thornycroft-Parson drives are solidly built. But there's still room for improvement – there's a few tricks I know that should be able to boost the thermal efficiency and thrust output."

"I'll have you liaise with my navigator on anything you intend doing that would affect the ship's performance," said Amelia, nodding to Aurora.

"Happy to help, ma'am," Aurora touched her hat obediently.

"You know, if I'd known I was on the same planet as you, I'd have paid you a visit myself," said Milo apologetically.

Audrey shrugged. "If I'd known, I'd have come to see you. It's a big galaxy out there, Milo. You can't keep track of everyone. Especially when you last heard of them staying in another dimension."

Milo chuckled. "I suppose not. So have you kept in touch with the others? What happened to them?"

"Well, we've tried to stay in contact. But it's not easy. Everyone's doing their own thing now, all across the Empire." Audrey shrugged again. "Vinny's on Jopall. He actually _did_ open a chain of flower shops if you can believe it, though he's got a sideline in industrial explosives."

"I can believe that," Milo grinned.

"Cookie opened a restaurant. I'm not sure if anyone's actually eaten there – well, more than once – but he doesn't seem to care."

"I can believe that, too." Milo's grin turned into a grimace.

"Sweet's back on his homeworld. Still doing the doctor thing." Audrey scratched her head. "I think that's about it for him. Mrs Packard retired. She's living in a big old house somewhere on Kingshome and has, like, a million cats or something."

Milo nodded. "And, er...Mole?"

Audrey opened her mouth and then shut it again, shaking her head. "Trust me. You don't want to know. Just be glad he's not here."

Milo tried not to audibly sigh with relief. "Right. Well. Glad everyone's doing all right for themselves."

"I'm sure most of them would have put their hand up to come here," Audrey patted him on the arm. "We've all missed you. But it was kind of short notice, you know? Just don't take their not being here as meaning that they don't like you or something."

"I'm certainly not." Milo shook his head. "I mean...I didn't expect that _I'd_ be here so I can hardly expect anyone else to be. But I'm glad you are."

"Right. Me too." Audrey gave him a wry grin. "Sure beats bolting new buckets onto excavators!"

"If you'll pardon the interruption," Amelia cut in. "Are you ready to depart, Ms Ramirez?"

"Just about, Admiral."

"Then if you can leave the reunion with Dr Thatch until later?" Amelia cocked a pointed eyebrow.

"Oh. Right. Sure thing, Admiral." Audrey winked at Milo, tipped her cap and disappeared back below.

"And you'd better report to sick bay," said Amelia to Milo. "Pre-departure examination. I know it's a chore but our chief medical officer insists upon it. We might be in space for a long time and the last thing we need is someone falling ill with appendicitis or some other malady we could catch early."

"Of course. I understand." Milo turned to go and hesitated. "Only...where exactly _is_ sick bay?"

* * *

 _Providence_ 's sick bay was set deep in the ship's belly, close to the keel. Milo followed Aurora through the open door and the small triage room beyond it. The timber walls in this part of the ship were white-painted but the floor underfoot was a dark red that Milo found somewhat disconcerting. Aurora knocked on the door of an office just off the main ward and coughed politely.

"Your pardon, Surgeon-Captain. Milo Thatch is here."

Milo expected to hear a reply but to his surprise Aurora merely nodded and stepped back.

"Thank you, ma'am. I'll show him in."

She beckoned Milo forward and gave him a somewhat sympathetic look as she mouthed _good luck_ and left to return to the bridge. Milo glanced at a nameplate on the door bearing the legend _CMO E. Gray RN_ and peered around into the room beyond, waving one hand nervously.

"Er. Hello?"

The surgeon nodded economically. She was a tall Macropodian with a short mop of brown hair and a pair of rectangular spectacles perched on her long nose. She stepped out from behind her desk, carefully navigating her long tail through the gap as she picked up a clipboard. The reason for her silence was soon evident as she produced a set of cards from her pocket and held one up to Milo so he could read the neat handwriting printed on it.

GOOD MORNING.

"Milo Thatch." Milo held out a hesitant hand. "Also a doctor. Though a different kind of doctor."

Gray ignored him and raised another card. THIS WON'T TAKE LONG.

Milo had to admit that it didn't. The mute surgeon applied a battery of tests in a thorough and methodical fashion, moving through what was obviously a pre-prepared set of cards giving various instructions. His various attempts to make casual conversation during the process met with universal failure as Gray worked with ruthless efficiency. Almost before he knew it, he was sitting on one of the beds in the ward and pulling his boots back on.

"Well," he said eventually. "That wasn't so bad."

Gray was busy writing on a clipboard and didn't look up. One of her long ears twitched but Milo couldn't be sure if that was a reaction or just a reflex. He cleared his throat.

"Last time I had a medical it was on that first expedition. You were certainly more thorough than Dr Sweet, but I guess he was pushed for time. Also Mole was there, which is enough to put anyone off."

Gray looked up at him with the first sign of personal interest to date. She produced a notebook and pen from a pocket and began writing a new message.

YOU KNOW MAJOR JOSHUA SWEET?

"Huh? Well, yeah, he was our doctor on the first Atlantis expedition. I knew he was in the army but he never talked much about what he did. You know him as well?"

ONLY BY REPUTATION, wrote Gray. HE HAS PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF PAPERS ON HIS HOMEWORLD'S INDIGENOUS MEDICAL TRADITIONS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY TO FIELD MEDICINE.

"Well, they work. I can attest to that myself." Milo adjusted his neck in memory.

I SEE. Gray looked at him appraisingly. I MAY HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU LATER.

"Sure. Whatever I can do to help." Milo smiled.

Gray nodded and held up one of pre-prepared cards. It read, YOU CAN GO.

"Right." Milo stood up and looked around. "Er. Which way is the bridge?"

Gray rolled her eyes and reached for her pen. UP. STOP WHEN YOU REACH THE MASTS.

"Oh. Right." Milo found himself hoping that Gray wouldn't be questioning him again too soon. "I'll see myself out, then, shall I?"

* * *

By the time Milo returned to the deck, the ship had undergone a change. The cargo piled on deck had vanished and spacers were closing up the large hatchways that led down to the cavernous holds below. There was an air of expectant preparation as topmen ascended the rigging and took up positions on the yards while deck crew began clearing the railings and stowing equipment neatly out of the way. Milo made his way back to the bridge, trying not to bump into anyone.

"Hey, Delbert," Milo joined Doppler by the side. "Did I miss anything?"

Doppler shook his head. "Oh, no. In fact, you're just in time for the good part."

"Ah, Dr Thatch," Amelia was pacing the bridge, hands folded behind her back, and had just caught sight of him. "I take it you're all cleared to fly?"

"I guess so. I mean, no objections were raised." Milo shrugged.

"Excellent." Amelia turned and nodded to a tall Katydian officer. "Mr Constantine?"

"The ship is at departure stations," said Constantine. "Engine room reports ready and the space tug is standing by."

"We're cleared for departure, ma'am," a young human lieutenant nearby had a telescope to his eye and was watching the array of flags atop the massive Admiralty House spire. "Port Control signals goodbye and good hunting."

"Thank you, Mr Pike. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?" Amelia smiled. "Get us underway, Lieutenant-Commander."

"Aye, ma'am." Constantine stepped forward and raised his voice. "Loose the headsails! Hands aloft, loose the topsails! Cast off fore and aft!"

Amelia turned to the signals officer. "Tell the tug to take the strain, Mr Pike. Steady as she goes."

"Aye, ma'am." Pike touched his hat and raised his semaphore flags. Behind them, the tug's signal lamp flashed a response. Milo heard the frame of the ship creak as it began moving.

"Hold her straight, Ms Mayflower," said Amelia warningly.

"Straight as a die, ma'am," Aurora touched a control on her navigation console. She glanced over her shoulder to where the two doctors were watching proceedings with interest. "I'm afraid it's not much of a launch, gentlemen. No band to play us off, and we're being dragged backwards out of port like a beached void whale..."

"I don't think it'll ever get old," Doppler smiled at her.

"At least one of us can still be poetic about space travel." Aurora grinned and turned back to her control panel. "Clear of the dock, ma'am!"

"Take us out two hundred and fifty," said Amelia. "Then cut the tug loose. Engine status, Mr Constantine?"

"Power translation from the sails is holding at ninety-eight," said Constantine. "Ms Ramirez reports main drive thrust ready at your discretion."

"Very good. We'll come about to starboard once the tug is clear, navigator," Amelia nodded to Aurora. "Make your departure course one-seven-five mark eight."

"One-seven-five mark eight it is, ma'am."

Doppler went back to the aft railing to watch the sternwalk crew below casting loose the lines from the tug as it drew them back. Milo was there too, but his head was raised to look into the sky and he seemed to be paying no attention to the unfolding display of ship-handing.

"Are you all right, Milo?"

The young human nodded. "Yeah. I was just thinking. Last time I left this port, it was to find Atlantis. And now I'm leaving again...to try to save it. To be honest, I'm not sure which proposition is the more nerve-wracking."

"I understand." Doppler patted his shoulder. "But we're in good hands. Amelia's the finest spacer in the fleet. And this crew – well, I've sailed with them before. They're the best there is.'

"I know. And I'm grateful for everything you've done." Milo smiled nervously. "I can't help worrying, though. Everyone's counting on me, both here and there. And if anything goes wrong..."

"Tug reports clear, ma'am!" shouted Pike, interrupting the anthropologist's train of thought.

"Reply with my appreciation, Mr Pike." Amelia watched the tug pull away with satisfaction. "Well, Flag-Lieutenant? She's all yours."

"Aye, ma'am." Aurora looked up. "Helm, starboard twenty! Port bow thrusters, full burn! Main engines, all ahead one-half!"

"See?" Doppler tried to grin confidently at Milo as _Providence_ went into a lumbering turn to point her great, blunt-nosed bows out into space. "Everything's under control."

"Lookouts report the sky is clear ahead, ma'am," said Constantine.

"Thank you, Mr Constantine." Amelia nodded. "Open full sails. Ms Mayflower? Full speed out of the system, then rig for a long-distance cruise to the Timaeus Cluster."

"Aye, ma'am."

Doppler watched Crescentia slip slowly away behind them, though it took a long time before both ends of the vast spaceport were visible at the same time, glowing pearl-white in the sunlight. A sudden jagged shadow fell across the ship and he turned in surprise at the same time as Milo caught his breath.

"What the...what's _that_?"

Between the _Providence_ and the sun was a mass of floating iron. A cluster of catamaran-style ships hung sullenly in space, their metal hulls pitted, holed and rusting. Immense turrets, their heavy guns muzzled, squatted atop their forms. Armoured superstructures like steel castles rose from between the twin hulls, their windows dark and empty, whilst soot-stained smokestacks towered over them from behind. The ships were chained together with great links as thick as tree trunks. Though they were clearly all abandoned – and, as Milo could now see, under the watchful guard of a pair of Royal Navy torpedo boats – they radiated a palpable air of menace as if they were only dormant, not derelict.

"You've missed one or two things while you've been away, Dr Thatch," said Amelia quietly, appearing at Milo's shoulder. "That is a legacy of war. The last resting place of the fleet the Procyons sent to destroy us."

"You remember those articles I gave you?" Doppler said. "The Ironclad War? Well...that's them. After we – ahem, after _Amelia_ – defeated them, the Procyons were forced to surrender their fleet as part of the peace treaty."

"You're too kind, Delbert," Amelia grinned. "I'm afraid I can't promise that your friends will find the galaxy improved since their last visit, Dr Thatch."

"No, I...I see." Milo looked at the cluster of war machines again. Even though _Providence_ was clearing their shadow and the bright sunlight was falling on her decks again, he felt a shiver run down as his spine as if the battered metal of the ironclads was sapping the very warmth out of the etherium. "Well. A good thing you won, then. How many are there?"

"Indeed." Amelia nodded. "There are seventeen here. Another eight at Port Devereaux. Five others at Darwin's World. And Circe Sector should be taking possession of nearly forty more."

"Thirty-seven, ma'am," volunteered Aurora, who had just joined them. She touched her hat respectfully to Amelia. "Course set and secured."

"Thank you, navigator," Amelia smiled. "I should have known you'd have the exact number at your fingertips."

" _Taking_ possession?" Doppler looked surprised. "I thought you had all of them already."

"The Procyons didn't _quite_ throw everything they had at us," said Amelia. "There were still a number of ironclads in reserve at their bases, in case we were stubborn enough to fight on after their vanguard captured Parliament. They're being disarmed under the supervision of the Armistice Commission and then they'll be surrendered to us for destruction, but it takes time and they're not yet all accounted for."

"I see." Milo looked back at the ironclads. "Well. The sooner the better, I say."

"I couldn't agree more." Amelia looked at him severely. "Now, Dr Thatch. I'd be obliged if you'd join my officers and I in my stateroom in, shall we say, twenty minutes?"

"Of course, Admiral." Milo nodded. "What for?"

"To tell us where we're going, of course." Amelia smiled.

"What? I thought you'd have told everyone by now..." Milo was taken aback.

"Rumours spread through a port like wildfire," said Amelia. "And secrecy is paramount for this mission as I've told you already. Aside from the four of us here – and Ms Ramirez, of course – nobody knows what we're going to do. That's where you come in."

"Oh." Milo scratched his head. "Well. I'll try not to let you down. Twenty minutes, you said?"

"Quite so. If that's sufficient time?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, of course." Milo nodded hurriedly. "Er. I'll just have to get some notes out of my cabin."

"By all means." Amelia stepped back to let him pass. She watched him go and then turned back to Doppler, who was looking at her with amusement.

"You certainly have a way with people," Doppler grinned.

"My dear doctor," Amelia grinned back. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

* * *

Amelia's quarters aboard _Providence_ were substantially less impressive than those aboard the lost _Lyonesse_ and Doppler was momentarily taken aback at the contrast. The tender's conference room was barely big enough for the officers to squeeze around a small, bare table. The walls had been whitewashed but clearly some time ago as scuff marks and other signs of wear and tear were very much in evidence. Even the framed portrait of the Queen that hung overlooking the table was looking faded. Nevertheless, the ship's officers dutifully took their places – Amelia at the head of the table, Constantine on her right and Audrey (who made to put her booted feet up on the table until a glare from the Admiral stopped her in her tracks) on her left. Doppler recognised the other officers from his time aboard Amelia's old flagship and traded nods of recognition and genuine respect with them.

"Thank you for attending, gentlemen." Amelia motioned the company to take their seats. "And I must apologise for interrupting your leave and recalling you to duty. I had, as you will shortly discover, the very best of reasons. This is Dr Milo Thatch of the University of Montressor. What he will tell us cannot leave this room. Even discussion in the wardroom is forbidden. Our mission is of the utmost sensitivity."

She paused to allow her words to sink in, and then she nodded to Milo and sat down, steepling her fingers in front of herself.

"Proceed, doctor."

"Er. Thank you, Admiral." Milo went to stand up, only to find that his chair could be pushed back only a foot before it met the bulkhead, forcing him to crabwalk sideways before he could straighten to his full height. Doppler watched him sympathetically.

"Well," Milo said. "I'll just say it. And if you don't believe me, I don't really blame you. But I'm going to be leading you to Atlantis."

To his surprise, the officers barely reacted. A burly, red-coated Royal Marines officer raised his eyebrows silently and Constantine glanced around to see a nod of affirmation from Amelia. But that was all. It left him momentarily nonplussed.

"This crew has some experience with the legacy of your lost civilisation, Dr Thatch," Amelia explained. "You may continue. You will not find us a sceptical audience."

Milo coughed to hide his awkwardness.

"Right. So. As I was saying...Atlantis..."

Once he regained his composure and got into the swing of his narrative, he felt his confidence increasing and he explained the situation as clearly as he could – with Doppler chiming in occasionally to answer some of the questions, which proved more necessary as he reached the part about the need to recharge the Heart of Atlantis.

"The Heart seems to require the energy of a very particular type of star," Doppler was saying. "A kind of blue dwarf, to be precise. Such stars exist, but are comparatively rare. Fortunately, the Sapphire Deeps contain a number of possible candidates. Hence the name, in fact."

"Excuse me, doctor," Midshipman Collis held up his hand. "But I thought we were sailing for the Timaeus Cluster."

"Yes. We are. That's where Atlantis is right now," Milo explained. "But, you see, Atlantis can choose whereabouts it reappears in this universe. So all we need to do is get there...and then Atlantis will shift itself into the Sapphire Deeps, right into the blue dwarf group Dr Doppler has identified."

"It _moves_?" said Constantine.

"Well, yes. That's one of the ways it's kept itself safe for thousands of years. And why it turns up in myths and legends all over the known galaxy," said Milo.

"You make it sound remarkably straightforward, doctor," said Aurora.

"In theory?" said Milo. "It is. The tricky part will be-"

"The coordinates for the shift," Doppler finished the sentence. "If we get it wrong...well, we could end up too far away from the stars. Or in the middle of one."

"And the Heart only has enough energy left to do one shift," said Milo. "So we only get one shot at this."

"Dr Doppler will be taking charge of the necessary calculations," said Amelia, turning to Aurora. "With your assistance, navigator."

Aurora nodded and tried not to look nervous. "Of course, ma'am."

"The rest of you need concern yourselves only with getting us there," Amelia looked at the other officers calmly. "Dr Thatch? The compass, if you please."

Milo produced it and put the small metallic sphere on the table, opening it as he did so. He heard a murmur of surprise run around the table as the hovering, illuminated pixels flowed out of the device and took up their positions.

"This device," he said. "Will lead us back to Atlantis. But reaching it is only part of the problem. Atlantis is surrounded by an asteroid belt – made of what's left of its original planet and various debris that has been drawn into the dimensional pocket over the millennia. You'll need to steer the ship through it. And there's another thing – the asteroid belt is guarded."

"Guarded by what?" Major Tansley, the sceptical Royal Marine officer, leaned forwards. "I thought you said the Atlanteans were a peaceful race."

"'Peaceful' isn't the same thing as 'stupid', Major," said Milo, as pointedly as he dared. "Atlantis was once a mighty and powerful empire with technologies far in advance of our own. And despite their decline, some of it still works. Some of you may be familiar with the spacer's legend of the Leviathan – the unstoppable monster of the stars. Let me tell you: like Atlantis itself, the Leviathan is no legend. It's an Atlantean war machine. The last Atlantean war machine. It was built to defend the city...and it still does. No ship has ever got past it, and very few have ever got away."

"I trust," said Constantine levelly, "that there _is_ a way past it, doctor? I can't imagine the plan is to fight our way back to your friends."

"Trust me on this, Lieutenant-Commander: you couldn't. Not even with a whole squadron of ships-of-the-line, and certainly not in a supply tender like this one." Milo shook his head firmly. "But there is a way past it. Audrey? Do you have your pendant with you?"

"I never take it off." Audrey reached into the collar of her boiler suit and produced a thin gold necklace bearing a small pendant of pale blue crystal, which seemed to glow in her hand. Milo held up one of his own.

"These crystals," he said, "are from Atlantis. Powered by the same energy as the Heart itself – which also powers the Leviathan. These are our way in."

"Huh." Audrey grinned. "Good thing I kept hold of it, huh?"

"Yep. And don't lose it now." Milo grinned back. "I can promise you all that the Atlanteans themselves are a friendly and welcoming people. The Leviathan...is not. It's of the utmost importance that when we encounter it, you do _nothing_ to provoke it. If you do, I can't guarantee that even these crystals will be able to save us."

"With due respect," said Tansley, "these Atlanteans of yours don't sound all that peaceful if they're content to let a weapon like that go on a rampage against any visitors."

"The history of Atlantis is...complicated," Milo admitted. "They've lost much of their past knowledge - including how to shut down the Leviathan."

"That," said Tansley, "does not fill me with confidence. Are we walking into this situation with open eyes?"

"Let the doctors deal with that," Amelia said. "Once we reach Atlantis, this is a purely diplomatic mission. We are not there to antagonise them. May I remind you that the Atlanteans are the people who built Treasure Planet and the _Black Knight._ Rousing them to anger would, I suspect, be a fatal mistake in every possible interpretation of the term. Nobody knows them better than Dr Thatch. He's studied them, and he's lived among them for years now. If he says that this is how it is – then so be it. We take him as his word. After all, if he's wrong, he'll burn with the rest of us."

"As you wish, Admiral," Tansley nodded. Amelia turned her cool gaze to Milo, who was looking a little uneasy at the way in which Amelia had vouched for him.

"We'll do as you say, doctor," she said. "Are there any further questions, gentlemen? If not, it's five weeks to the Timaeus Cluster so you have plenty of time of think of any."

Constantine glanced about. "None for the moment, it would seem, ma'am."

"Very good. Then you're all dismissed. Though I remind you: the details of what we've discussed here do not leave this room. This mission will continue as it began – in absolute secrecy. Is that clear?"

"Aye, ma'am!"

"Carry on, then." Amelia stood, signalling that the meeting was over. The officers saluted one by one and left to go about their various duties. Milo watched them go and was breathing a sigh of relief when Audrey clapped him cheerily on the back.

"Good job, Milo," she said. "Much better than the briefing you gave us. You remember that one?"

"I can hardly forget," Milo said ruefully. "It's probably for the best that there's no slide projector on board."

Audrey laughed. "And what do you think, Admiral? Do you think we can trust everyone?"

"I've sailed through fire, blood and shadow with this crew," said Amelia. "They've not let me down once. And besides, we do have one advantage when it comes to keeping this mission a secret..."

"What's that?" asked Doppler.

"That nobody would believe a word of it," Amelia flashed a grin.

Doppler chuckled. "Well, when you put it like that..."

Milo and Audrey took their leave and stepped back out onto the deck. By unspoken agreement, they made their way to the forecastle and stood there overlooking the pair of shrouded and muzzled bowchaser guns mounted below them and the bowsprit beyond, festooned with glowing jib sails. A few of the white mantabirds that had accompanied the ship from Crescentia were still flying nearby, but they soon peeled off one by one to return home, leaving the ship all alone in the etherium. Milo breathed a long sigh.

"So here we are again," he said. "Who'd have thought it?"

"Not me," said Audrey. She smiled at him. "I never thought I'd see you again. I'm glad you came back."

"Me, too." Milo smiled in return. "I just wish it was under happier circumstances...and that I had to chance to see everyone again."

"Maybe if we pull this off, you'll be able to come back more often?"

"I hope so." Milo nodded. "It's funny how we've gone from just wanting to find Atlantis to having to save it. I wish I'd had time to find Mr Whitmore to tell him about it. I just know he'd be thrilled."

Audrey's face fell. Milo caught the look in her eyes and stopped.

"Audrey?"

"Oh, Milo...of course, I forgot that you wouldn't know. You've been away for so long." Audrey gave him a sad smile. "Mr Whitmore died. About three years ago now."

"Oh." Milo looked down. He'd almost regarded Mr Whitmore as a second grandfather, and had never forgotten the debt he owed the old man for having had the chance to vindicate him. "Sorry."

"Don't be. I mean, I should be. I should have told you before." Audrey took his hand. "His funeral was the last time we all saw each other. We all went there to say goodbye. He would have liked it. But he wouldn't have been sorry you weren't there – he knew you were where you should have been."

"That's good to hear." Milo gave a small, sad smile of his own.

Audrey let go of his hand and squeezed his shoulder gently. "Anyway. I'd better get back to those engines. You'll be okay, Milo?"

Milo nodded and turned back to the bows as she left him, lost in thought. He'd only been away a few short years. But it seemed that so much had already changed.


	3. Chapter 3

Crescentia was soon just a memory as the _Providence_ sailed deep into the etherium. Their route took them away from the major shipping lanes and even beyond the most popular fishing spaces, so it wasn't long before the big tender was the only vessel in sight anywhere, lending the voyage a heightened sense of pioneering discovery. The glory of the etherium unfolded around them, the nights bringing out the twinkle of countless stars and the shine of faraway nebulae and the days showing off the pristine white of the drifting clouds. A comet sailed majestically past, its mile-long gossamer tail shining with rainbows. But not every one of the _Providence_ 's crew was in a position to enjoy it.

"Carrots again..." Milo groaned and hoisted himself up off the ship's railing, adjusting his spectacles to sit them back onto his nose. "I'm never going to go spacing again after this is all over...just stay on Atlantis forever..."

He turned around, awkwardly aware of a trio of spacers who had been watching his struggle with what he regarded as unjustified amusement, and almost ran into someone else. His eyes still on the deck, he caught sight of the hem of a white coat and the end of a long tail just in time to avoid collision.

"Dr Gray! Sorry, please excuse me..."

YOU AREN'T WELL. Gray held up her notebook. It was a statement, not a question, but Milo nodded anyway.

"It's just spacesickness. It happens every time I sail."

Gray nodded, raising an eyebrow as her pen worked quickly. YOU ARE CERTAIN?

"Of course I'm certain. As if I could be wrong about this. Not that I wish I wasn't." Milo ran a hand through his hair and looked up as a thought occurred to him. "You wouldn't happen to have anything for it, would you?"

YES. KEEP WATCHING A FIXED POINT ON THE HORIZON. IT'S CAUSED BY A DISSOCIATION BETWEEN THE VISUAL AND MOTION STIMULI. YOU WILL ADJUST.

"Yeah, sure, but..." Milo sighed. "I'm kind of desperate here. And I don't think the Admiral will thank me for repainting the side of her ship..."

The surgeon rolled her eyes, but gave a nod. REPORT TO THE DISPENSARY. THE ORDERLY WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH SCOPOLAMINE HYDROBROMIDE.

"Thanks. You're a life-saver."

I KNOW.

Milo turned to go and made his way back along the deck slowly, pausing to steady himself against a mast as he approached the aft companionway. Amelia was coming down the bridge steps, looking as brisk and businesslike as usual.

"Ah, Dr Thatch. Good morning." She greeted him cheerfully. "I trust you slept well?"

"It's not the sleeping that's the problem," Milo admitted.

"So I see. But not to worry. Spacesickness isn't fatal and nor is it disqualifying. Though I trust you'll be able to leave the deck later this morning?"

"Why? Is there something happening?" Milo looked around. Spacers were beginning to work on a series of circular metal hatchways, evenly-distributed at six to a side by the railings. He'd assumed them to be some other kind of loading port to the ship's cavernous cargo holds, but as he watched one of them opened and a heavy short-barrelled carronade telescoped out and was manhandled into its mounting cradle by the crew.

"Gunnery practice," said Amelia. "We are still a Navy vessel, after all."

"Oh. Right." Milo shook his head. "No, I'll be all right."

"Capital." Amelia smiled. "I'll leave you to it, then."

She strode on down her deck, and Milo looked back to see Doppler following her down from the bridge. He stopped and smiled apologetically at him.

"I'm sorry about that," said Doppler. "She's always awfully keen on maintaining discipline and efficiency."

"I understand. This isn't meant to be a pleasure cruise after all." Milo watched the crew unmasking the ship's other guns. "Though I hope we won't be using them."

"I say that every time I've followed Amelia onto a ship," said Doppler.

"And has it ever worked out?"

Doppler thought about it. "Now that you mention it, no..."

Milo groaned. "Well, that's all I need..."

Doppler chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. "Not to worry. Just leave all that sort of thing to Amelia. We've all got our parts to play to make this voyage a success."

"Right enough." Milo swallowed. "Ugh...I'd better get below. Sorry, Delbert. Kind of an emergency."

Doppler nodded sympathetically. "I hope you feel better soon. Believe it or not, it does improve with time."

He watched the human vanish down the companionway at something a cross between a run and a stumble and thanked his stars once again for his own apparent immunity to spacesickness as he turned to go.

* * *

 _Providence_ 's chartroom was neat and tidy, as such places tended to be and especially when under the stewardship of someone like Aurora, whose instinctive orderliness always made Doppler, a bachelor for most of his life, somewhat nervous. Like every chartroom he had ever seen, it was a small compartment and much of the floorspace was given to a large, broad table. The walls were lined with neat little lockers with square doors of walnut polished so that the wood was dark and the small brass handles affixed to them were shining. The dark wood theme was continued on the bulkhead panelling, but the room was brightly lit by a chandelier of lamps above the central table. Aurora was hunting through the various lockers as Doppler looked on. Her uniform jacket was hanging from the back of a chair and her white waistcoat and shirt and her mane of blonde hair glowed under the lights.

"I'm afraid there are no especially good charts of the Sapphire Deeps," she said. "I ordered the best one I could find, but even it isn't especially detailed. The Deeps are a long way off anywhere we'd normally be concerned with. Really they're only regarded as Imperial territory by default. There are no planets there, no colonies, no shipping routes, no asteroid belts...nothing but your blue dwarf stars."

"I realise they're a bit out of the way," said Doppler apologetically. "But that's part of why I chose them. We do have to keep Atlantis a secret, after all, so we could hardly have it turn up in the middle of an inhabited system even if one of them did have the right kind of star. Which they don't, of course, because these blue dwarfs aren't usually associated with planetary systems."

"Well, that should make things easier." Aurora opened a locker and smiled. "Ah, here we go."

Doppler helped her unroll the chart and stared at it in dismay. It was indeed labelled 'Sapphire Deeps' but, aside from a dozen or so dots marking the positions of the blue stars, it was practically bare.

"Is this it?"

Aurora nodded. "I fear so. It's a pretty empty bit of space you've got us going to, doctor."

Doppler sighed. "Well, at least it's in standard scale so we can cross-reference it with the others...I don't much like the idea of moving Atlantis in there without knowing exactly what's where we'll end up."

"The idea of hiding a whole planet in another dimension and then popping back into the universe wherever you want to be..." Aurora shook her head. "Is that even possible?"

"Theoretically?" Doppler shrugged. "But these _are_ the Forefathers we're talking about. The people who used to obtain their raw materials from stellar nucleosynthesis. The people who built a network of portals that could take you anywhere in the galaxy in a heartbeat. I think it's fair to say that space and time aren't as limiting to them as they are for us."

"As you say," Aurora smiled. "I just wonder how it could be done."

"So do I." Doppler nodded. "I asked Milo about it but he seemed uncertain. Which is understandable; physics isn't his expertise. But from what he's told us, even the Atlanteans themselves probably have very little idea. I suppose it all comes down to relativity in the end...so long as we can accurately fix our position in the Timaeus Cluster we should be all right."

"That would make sense if we were navigating a ship," said Aurora doubtfully. "But jumping a city across more than a sector of space...I'm not sure it works the same way."

"I suppose we'll have to solve that problem once we get there and figure it out." Doppler shrugged.

"I wonder how they used to do it?" Aurora frowned. "Recharge the...Heart of Atlantis, Dr Thatch called it? They can't have been moving the planet all over the galaxy, surely."

"Well, it sounds like they used a fleet of ships," said Doppler. "Milo's learned that much about the process. They'd send ships to harvest energy from the stars and then deliver it back to the Heart."

"Ah. Ships like the one we found orbiting that dead star?" Aurora looked up with interest.

"That's what it sounds like to me. Though of course they haven't been able to do that recently. There's so much to ask them." Doppler smiled. "I've been thinking about the Forefathers since the Treasure Planet voyage. And now we get to meet them in person."

"There must be a million questions we could ask them," Aurora sighed speculatively, enjoying Doppler's evident enthusiasm.

"Yes, but..." Doppler's face fell. "I don't know how many answers they'll be able to give. If what Milo says is right, they all but forgot about their own achievements and culture. I only hope he's been able to help them rediscover at least some of it. May I borrow this chart, by the way?"

Aurora shrugged. "Go ahead, doctor."

"It'll come in handy for surveying the Sapphires, at least," said Doppler. "So long as you don't mind me making notes on it?"

"By all means."

"Thank you." Doppler rolled up the chart and tucked it under his arms. "Amelia's given me time with the ship's primary telescope every afternoon. It's not as good as the one I was using at home, but it's better than nothing when it comes to telling the blue stars apart."

"Is there one in particular we should be aiming for?" asked Aurora.

Doppler sighed. "I don't know. Aside from the type of star, I'm not sure what the Heart of Atlantis actually needs. That's something else we can only find out once we get there. In the meantime...I might as well get as much data as possible so we can make an informed choice."

"Good luck," said Aurora, with feeling. "And do let me know if I can help with the observations. There's not going to be much ship-handling between here and Atlantis."

"Where there may be all too much," Doppler reminded her. "The asteroid belt? The Leviathan?"

"Asteroids don't bother me," Aurora said. "I'm getting to know the feel of this ship, and Ms Ramirez has promised some improvements to the bow thrusters. But this Leviathan..."

"Yes, that bothered me, too." Doppler grimaced. "I hope those little crystals do as they're supposed to."

"Likewise." Aurora agreed. "I've never much liked the fighting part of being in the Navy, and fighting something you can't beat sounds like even less fun."

"Well, if all goes to plan, there shouldn't be any fighting at all this time," Doppler smiled encouragingly. "No pirates. No Procyons. Nobody being driven mad by ambient magnetics. All very straightforward."

"All very straightforward," Aurora smiled back.

"Right." Doppler tried to grin. "So long as you and I get our numbers right, what could possibly go wrong?"

* * *

The days of the voyage grew into weeks, and to Milo's great relief some combination of Dr Gray's advice or her medications soon made his spacesickness nothing but a bad memory. One day, Milo was sitting at the conference table in Amelia's stateroom, a book open in front of him and papers scattered across the surface. He was bent over a book, frowning in intense concentration, and it took him a long moment to realise that someone was speaking to him.

"Hey, Milo. Milo? You in there? I've been looking all over for you."

"Huh?" He blinked as his train of thought went crashing off the rails. "Oh. Audrey. Sorry about that. I was a thousand miles away."

"On Atlantis, right?" Audrey sat across the table from him. "They told me you'd be in here. I was wondering why."

"Something like that," Milo admitted. "The Admiral said that, for security reasons, all my papers on Atlantis have to be stored here in her cabin, so whenever I have to look something up...here I am."

"I can see why she wants to keep the secret," said Audrey. "So what is it you're reading about?"

"How to recharge the Heart of Atlantis," Milo said.

"You mean...you don't know?" Audrey blinked in surprise.

"Not in so many words." Milo sat back and ran a tired hand through his hair. "It's been ages since they last had to do it. I was able to unearth a few historical scrolls so I've been translating them, but...they're more what you'd call narrative. Unfortunately the Atlanteans never really went into writing manuals for their technology."

"So what do you have so far?" Audrey craned her neck to see.

"From what I can gather, the Heart itself gathers the energy directly." Milo ran his finger along a line of Atlantean text. _"And lo, the Heart did ascend into the heavens and drew upon the essence of the light..."_

"So it's solar powered? Like our sails?"

"No, I think it's tapping a much more fundamental kind of energy." Milo shook his head. "I mean, you've seen what it can do, Audrey. The Heart's not just some kind of _battery_. Rourke thought that it was and he was wrong. But what is it, if it's not that?"

"You're working yourself too hard, Milo," Audrey warned. "Look, whatever it is, you'll figure it out in time. You're the smartest person I know."

"And Delbert's the smartest person _I_ know," said Milo. "At least, when it comes to this kind of stuff."

"There you are, then." Audrey grinned. "No need to worry."

Milo sat back and sighed. "Maybe I should take a break from all this...get some coffee from the wardroom or something. I think I could just about keep that down."

"Exactly," said Audrey. "You're just like you were when we started the first expedition. You're wound tighter than a steel spring, always buried in some old book..."

Milo chuckled. "Now that you mention it, I guess I do see the parallels..."

"Right. So take it easy, would you?" Audrey put her booted feet up on the table. "And tell me what's been going on with you."

Milo looked at her feet warily. "Uh, I don't think the Admiral would appreciate that, Audrey."

Audrey hesitated for a moment and then took her feet down. "Yeah, fair point."

"And what is there to tell, really?" Milo shrugged. "You know what we have to do."

"I didn't mean _that_ ," Audrey sat forward. "I said _with you_. I've already told you what I've been doing, and what everyone else has been doing. But what about you and Kida? How's Atlantis been?" She grinned. "Are there any little Milos running around the place yet?"

Milo looked at her blankly before blushing as he realised what she meant. "Oh, no. No, no, no. I mean, Kida's fine. And it's not like we don't want to at some point. It's just...these past few years have been so busy. What with the restoration and everything. There's a lot to do."

"Of course. I understand." Audrey nodded.

"The restoration itself is going well," Milo continued. "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. We're finding some new relic of the Atlantean past almost every week. We've even found one of their old spacecraft, or so we think. We haven't got it to fly yet."

"Maybe I could give you a hand with that?" Audrey looked hopeful. "I've never met a machine I couldn't fix."

"You'd be more than welcome to try," said Milo. "Of course, once the Heart has been recharged, it should make everything much easier."

"And I'm sure you'll make it happen." Audrey patted his hand. "The place must already look very different."

"Well, in some ways," Milo smiled. "But you'll find most of it's still familiar. And Kida will be so happy to see you. She wasn't expecting to see any of the old crew again."

"I'm happy to come as a surprise," grinned Audrey.

"You always do." Milo grinned back. "Besides-"

He was cut off by the sound of the first carronade discharging outside, a deep, bass thud that was felt even through the ship's timbers.

"That must be the gunnery practice the Admiral told me about," he said. "Sorry, Audrey."

"Hey, it's no bother." Audrey looked around as the blasts continued. "You want to go and watch?"

Milo shook his head. "No, I'd really better get keep going with this."

"I thought you agreed to take a break?" She eyed him pointedly.

"So I did." Milo gave a tired smile. "I suppose the fact I forgot that is proof that I need one."

"Damn right." Audrey winked. "Now...are you going to go to the wardroom yourself, or do I have to drag you down there myself?"

* * *

Eventually the Timaeus Cluster came into sight, a scattered group of pale stars. But it wasn't the stars which caught Milo's attention as he emerged on deck – it was the fact that they were behind the ship. Alarmed, he fished out his compass and hurried to the bridge, where he could see Amelia pacing back and forth amongst her officers.

"Uh, Admiral? I hate to be a pain, but I think we're going the wrong way-"

Aurora intercepted him, taking his arm gently. "Easy, Dr Thatch. It's all right. We're in a holding pattern."

"A holding pattern?" Milo looked past her at the helm console and saw that the rudder indicator was set a few degrees to port, meaning that the _Providence_ was steering a wide, continuous circle. "Oh. Um. Why?"

"We're making a rendezvous," Amelia's pacing brought her past them. "Or rather, we _should_ be. But our companions appear to be running late. Have you any sight of them, Lieutenant-Commander?"

Constantine, on the nearest bridge wing with a telescope, shook his head. "Not yet, ma'am."

"Who are we meeting?" Milo looked around, but the Admiral was gone again. Aurora took pity on him.

"It's a messenger ship. Before we left Crescentia, the Admiral arranged for one to meet us just before we entered wilderness space to deliver the latest fleet communiques - she likes to keep up-to-date, especially with the peace process. It should have sailed from the nearest waystation at Port Verity four days ago and be meeting us here."

"What does that mean?"

Aurora shrugged. "Who knows? The weather's been clear, but there are all sorts of things which could have held her up. There's nothing to do but wait."

"Contact! Sail bearing green one-two-five mark zero two!" A lookout on the mainmast called out, pointing into the distance.

"Speak of the devil," Aurora smiled. "Looks like you got here just in time, doctor."

"Confirm that sighting, Mr Constantine," said Amelia. "Can you identify it?"

Constantine swung his telescope to bear. By straining his eyes to the utmost, Milo could just make out a pale white dot against the sky-blue of the etherium.

"Confirmed, ma'am," Constantine nodded. "It's one of ours."

"And about blasted time, too." Amelia gave a grim smile of satisfaction. "Mr Pike? Signal them to come alongside and take station off the starboard bow. Navigator? Break out of the holding pattern. Reduce speed to one-eighth and steady up on our original course."

"Aye, ma'am." Aurora stepped back to her console. "Helmsman? Bring us northwest by west to two-nine-nine, then set rudder amidships, trim and slow to one-eighth ahead."

"Northwest by west, rudder amidships, trim and slow it is, ma'am!"

Milo watched as the distant ship approached. It was moving at quite a speed, the dot soon resolving into the shape of a small vessel under full sail. As the _Providence_ settled onto her old course towards the Timaeus stars, the newcomer turned to begin coming up alongside in obedience to the flag signal flying from the tender's halyards. Flags of their own blossomed from their mast, flying out colourfully in the celestial breeze. Lieutenant Pike the signals officer read them through his telescope.

"It's the _Ambuscade_ from Port Verity, ma'am," he said. "She apologises for her lateness but advises that she's carrying urgent messages."

"Signal welcome and acknowledgement," Amelia said. "Mr Constantine? Prepare to receive her longboat on the main deck starboard."

"Aye, ma'am!" Constantine left the bridge, shouting orders to the spacers on deck. Milo watched for a moment before returning his gaze to the ship that was approaching. It was a small sloop-of-war, one of countless hundreds used by the Royal Navy as messenger and patrol ships throughout the Empire. It was rapidly overhauling the bigger ship and Milo saw spacers working to furl some of it sails as it reduced speed to match. It eventually came to rest off the starboard bow just as ordered, so close that Milo could read her name off her stern even as his eye was distracted by a longboat that peeled away from her side and began steering towards the _Providence_.

"Amelia?" Doppler arrived on the bridge. "Is everything all right? I felt the ship slowing down."

"Everything's fine, Delbert." Amelia nodded. "The mail has arrived, that's all."

Doppler looked as the _Ambuscade_ 's longboat pulled up alongside the deck. _Providence_ 's spacers went to meet it, drawing its mooring lines close as an officer stepped aboard and saluted Constantine. Amelia raised an eyebrow.

"How odd. Excuse me, doctor. And doctor. One moment."

She made her way down from the bridge and moved to join Constantine. Doppler thought about following, and did so as far as the main deck before he remembered himself and hung back.

"Mr Constantine?" Amelia reached him. The Katydian touched his hat to her.

"Just completing the transfer now, ma'am."

"Very good." Amelia looked pointedly at the other officer, who snapped to attention.

"Apologies for our tardiness, ma'am. Lieutenant Prescott, officer commanding RLS _Ambuscade_."

"Mr Prescott." Amelia returned the salute. "I assume there's a reason for the delay?"

"Yes, ma'am. I thought it best to convey it in person." Prescott nodded. "We took on the routine communications to bring out, but just before we sailed from Verity we received word from the Admiralty that a message of the utmost importance was coming through from the Diplomatic Corps. We were directed to delay our departure until it was received."

He reached into the inner pocket of his blue coat and produced an envelope. "My instructions from the Diplomatic Corps were to deliver it in person, ma'am. It's addressed for your eyes only."

Amelia took it with a nod of thanks. "I see. Very well. In that case, lieutenant, I commend you on your attention to detail."

"Thank you, ma'am." Prescott touched his hat again.

"Carry on here, Mr Constantine." Amelia nodded to her first officer and turned to head back for her cabin. Doppler intercepted her on the way.

"Amelia?"

"Something's afoot," said Amelia. "You'd better come with me. Flag-lieutenant?"

Aurora appeared at the bridge railing. "Ma'am?"

"You as well." Amelia looked at the marine sentry at her cabin door as he opened it for her. "Nobody else, though, private. Not even my steward."

"Aye, Admiral!"

With the door safely closed behind them, Doppler watched curiously as Amelia opened the envelope with a small silver letter-opener. Aurora was watching as well, somewhat anxiously. She traded a worried glance with Doppler before she cleared her throat.

"Ma'am?"

"Whatever is in this letter," Amelia said, "was important enough for the Diplomatic Corps to interfere in an Admiralty operation. If it's something that will impact on this voyage, I'd rather the two of you knew about it before anyone else."

She produced the letter and began reading it in silence. One eyebrow was cocked at first, but it soon lowered to join the other in a frown as her green eyes moved down the text on the page before her. Doppler noticed the change in her expression and stepped forward.

"Is there something wrong, my dear?"

"It's a report from the Armistice Commission," said Amelia quietly. "They say they've completed the seizure of the remaining Procyon ironclads. Thirty-six have been transferred into the custody of Battlefleet Circe."

"Oh." Doppler thought for a moment. "Isn't that good?"

"No." Amelia shook her head. "Aurora can tell you why."

"There were meant to be thirty-seven," said Aurora.

"Perhaps that was an error?" Doppler suggested. "What with the confusion of the war and everything. A lot of the ironclads were destroyed, after all."

Amelia shook her head. "No. We counted every ironclad we destroyed in battle and the Commission counted every ironclad the Procyons built once they got access to their records under the peace treaty's verification clauses. One advantage of a totalitarian system like the Procyons' is that everything gets written down somewhere. There should have been thirty-seven ironclads surrendered. Not more, not fewer."

"Where could it be?"

"I don't know. They say wasn't in port." Amelia frowned. "They've accessed the manufacturing records for the entire ironclad fleet and they've matched each record to a vessel that was either destroyed or seized – each record but one, it seems. There are records regarding the construction of the last of the Dreadnought-class ironclads but no sign of the ship itself. No berthing records. No designated home port. It's as if they built it and it just vanished."

"But that's impossible." Doppler paused, reminding himself that they were on their way to find Atlantis. "Well, it's highly unlikely. You can't just _lose_ a Procyon Dreadnought. They're the biggest warships in the known galaxy."

"And yet the Armistice Commission says there's one missing." Amelia tapped the paper and sighed. "Well, it's not my concern. At least not for now. Crescentia Headquarters will have to deal with it."

"What has to be done, ma'am?" asked Aurora.

"The First Star Lord has ordered all commands to be on the alert," said Amelia. "Crescentia's been ordered to deploy two battle squadrons and to bring a third to readiness."

"Why would they do that?" Doppler stopped as it dawned on him. "Unless...they think the missing Dreadnought is out there somewhere. And might be dangerous."

"Precisely." Amelia folded the letter and tucked it away inside her own coat. "News of the armistice may not have reached it, wherever it is."

"But we're to continue our mission, ma'am?" said Aurora.

"We are." Amelia nodded. "But...I'd ask that the two of you not mention this, even to each other. This is one of the most closely-guarded secrets in the Empire right now."

"Well, so is the fact that we're looking for Atlantis," said Doppler, in what he hoped was a joke to lighten the mood a little. He was pleased to see Amelia give him an appreciative grin.

"Quite right. So I expect that keeping this to yourselves will be no trouble at all. Carry on."

Aurora saluted and smiled back. She hoped it looked like she meant it. But part of her remembered fighting the ironclads, seeing the pitiless steel monsters spitting death and destruction, and couldn't help quailing at the thought of the missing Dreadnought even as she left the cabin and stepped back into the bright sun outside. She touched a hand to her left arm and unconsciously felt the bandages under her uniform where her arm was still healing from the splinter wound she'd received during the battle.

"Aurora?" Doppler was looking at her. He didn't dare ask the question in public, but his eyes said _are you all right_ as clearly as anything could.

"Yes, doctor. Thank you." Aurora removed her hand from her arm and smiled. He nodded and smiled back, and then took his leave. Aurora stood for a moment and then returned to her post on the bridge. The _Ambuscade_ was already moving off, dropping behind the _Providence_ as the big tender continued for the Timaeus Cluster ahead. She watched the little sloop as its engines flared to power it on its way home, and couldn't help feeling a little lonelier once it had gone.

* * *

Milo stood on the bridge in the first faint light of dawn, the Atlantean compass open in his palm. Aurora stood next to him at the navigation console, watching the holographic displays carefully. Amelia arrived on the bridge and traded salutes with her.

"Report, Flag-Lieutenant."

"Good morning, ma'am." Aurora stood to attention. "We expect to have Atlantis in sight momentarily."

"Momentarily?" Amelia glanced at Milo, who nodded.

"According to the compass, yes," he said. "We're certainly very close."

"The middle watch reported encountering a white squall during the night, ma'am," said Aurora. "Weather conditions in the area appear normal. But it might have been caused by a displacement effect."

"Such as the appearance of a lost planet, you mean?" Amelia smiled.

"Precisely, ma'am," said Aurora. "And many of the accounts of encounters with Atlantis feature strange climatic events. Under the circumstances, I thought it worth informing you."

"Quite right," Amelia nodded. "I take it you've posted extra lookouts?"

"I took the liberty, ma'am," Aurora agreed. "But there's nothing in sight yet."

"Keep at it, then," said Amelia. "Call all officers to the bridge. And Dr Thatch? Let us know if that compass of yours so much as twitches. I trust that Dr Doppler has been notified?"

"He should be on his way to the bridge now, ma'am," said Aurora.

As if on cue, a somewhat shambolic figure burst onto the bridge. Doppler was pulling on his burgundy coat with some difficulty, almost losing his spectacles in the process.

"Have we seen it yet? Is it in sight?"

"Calm yourself, doctor," Amelia smiled. "You haven't missed a thing. Except possibly a button or two."

Doppler followed her amused gaze and realised that his waistcoat was buttoned askew. "Oh...er. I suppose I was in rather a hurry to get here..."

"You're hardly to be blamed for that," said Amelia. "After all, this should be an historic moment. The first official sighting of Atlantis."

"Well, in fact it'll be the asteroid field you see first," said Milo. "Atlantis itself is on the other side."

Constantine arrived and touched his hat to Amelia. "Lookouts posted at the fo'c'sle, ma'am."

"Very good, Mr Constantine." Amelia folded her hands behind her back. "Take a glass for yourself and keep your eyes peeled."

"Aye, ma'am." Constantine took a telescope from a belt holster and moved over to the starboard bridge wing.

"Steady as she goes, navigator," Amelia turned back to Aurora. "Current speed?"

"Two-thirds, ma'am."

"Reduce to one-half," said Amelia. "If we're coming up on it then we may have to make a sharp manoeuvre at some point. And we _are_ coming up on it, aren't we, Dr Thatch?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. No doubt about it." Milo looked up from the glowing compass. "Er, but possibly turn a little to the right?"

Aurora glanced at Amelia for confirmation before she spoke. "Turn right, aye. Helm, starboard zero two."

"Starboard zero two, aye." The spacer at the helm moved the wheel slightly.

"Contact!" A shout came from one of the spacers forward. "Bearing green zero five!"

"Get forward and confirm that, Mr Constantine," Amelia waved. "Dr Thatch?"

Milo held up the compass and nodded, feeling his heart quicken with excitement. "Sounds about right to me, Admiral."

Doppler hurried to the starboard wing and peered out into space. Dawn had not yet fully suffused the etherium and a part of the sky was still in shadow. But even his unaided eyes could see that it was not empty.

"Contact confirmed!" shouted Constantine. "Asteroids! About ten kilometres distant!"

"Very good!" Amelia grinned. "Well done, Dr Thatch. Ms Mayflower? Turn us towards them. Let's see what lies within."

Doppler rejoined her and kept watching as the _Providence_ turned slowly. As they approached the asteroids, the growing light began showing more and more detail. They were approaching the edge of a field of drifting rocks, some large and some small. He frowned as he studied them.

"How strange..."

"You've noticed something, doctor?" Amelia glanced around.

"The asteroids," Doppler nodded. "They're...unusual. Asteroids are normally relatively smooth, because of the accretion process and erosion by the weather. But those...can someone give me a telescope, please?"

He looked away briefly to take one from Midshipman Collis, but Amelia could already see what he meant. The asteroids they were heading for were jagged, broken things, all crazed angles, and the smaller rocks drifting amongst them had the look of fragmented shrapnel.

"Take us in slowly, navigator," she said quietly. "And keep all lookouts posted."

"Aye, ma'am," Aurora nodded. "Permission to reef topsails?"

"Permission granted. It'll protect them from any fast-moving stones." Amelia scanned the asteroid field, her eyes narrowing. "Go carefully, now."

"Reducing speed now," Aurora said, adjusting her controls. "All ahead one-quarter."

"Er, can I make a suggestion?" Milo raised a hand.

"Dr Thatch?" Amelia didn't take her eyes off the asteroids.

"We may need Audrey here," said Milo. "Er. Soon. Before we find the Leviathan – or before it finds us."

"Ah. Salient point." Amelia turned her head. "Mr Collis? My compliments to Ms Ramirez in the engine room. Have her report here at once."

"Aye, ma'am!"

Amelia went to stand closer to Milo and lowered her voice. "You think your Leviathan's in there, doctor?"

"It's definitely in there somewhere," said Milo. "I just don't know where. But it'll find us soon enough. Once we're inside the field..."

"Should we stand to action stations, ma'am?" asked Major Tansley.

"No." Amelia shook her head firmly. "We do nothing that could be taken as provocation. We are about to sail off the edge of the chart here, ladies and gentlemen. Our fates may not be entirely in our hands."

Doppler looked at her in surprise. Such an admission from her was startlingly out of character and served to underline the seriousness of their endeavour. Shaking himself, he returned his attention to the asteroid field. The shattered rocks drifted through a thin blue haze, some larger than the _Providence_. They were the easiest to avoid, he knew, and the danger ironically came from the smaller pieces which could hole the delicate solar sails and leave the ship drifting helpless or underpowered. He took a deep breath as the ship nosed its way in amongst them, bow thrusters flaring occasionally as Aurora nudged it one way or another in response to a warning cry from one of the lookouts. A cliff-like asteroid slid past them, affording him a clear view of its fractured face. Geology was not his strongest subject but he could see that some tremendous force had torn through the solid stone as if it had been paper.

"Contact!" shouted a lookout. "Contact bearing red four-two mark zero! It's a ship!"

Doppler swung his borrowed telescope to bear and focused in on the target. It was a ship – or at least, it had been once. It was now little more than a collection of broken timbers still holding the approximate shape of a bow and keel.

"Contact bearing green one-seven-one mark four-five!"

He turned quickly in the new direction and saw another pile of wreckage, this one spread across the surface of a large asteroid spinning slowly above them. And there were more, he suddenly realised with a shock - a dozen indistinct shapes he'd assumed were other asteroids turned out on second look to be drifting hulks or clusters of debris.

"Contact bearing-"

"I think we can do without contact reports for wrecks, thank you," snapped Amelia impatiently. "All lookouts, keep your eyes on those asteroids!"

Doppler tore his own attention away from the derelict ships and went back to the centre of the bridge. "Er, Milo?"

"It's the Leviathan," said Milo, scanning the sky. "Like I told you. Most people who've tried to find Atlantis failed. And most of those who did-"

"Yes, I see your point." Doppler looked at yet another drifting wreck.

Audrey arrived on the bridge, looking around her in awe. "Wow. All this looks strangely familiar. So we're nearly there, huh?"

"Almost nearly," said Milo. "We're only about a quarter of the way through. But we may need those crystals pretty soon."

"Way ahead of you, Milo," Audrey fished her pendant out of the collar of her boiler suit. "Just tell me where to point it."

Milo hesitated. Amelia caught it and glared at him.

"Dr Thatch?"

"Well...look, the thing is that we have to wait for the Leviathan to find us..."

"Contact! Ship bearing red nine-five mark two-zero!" A screamed warning came from one of the fighting tops.

"No wreck sightings, spacer!" shouted Constantine.

"Not a wreck, sir! It's _moving_!"

Amelia's head snapped around to see. There was a flicker of movement as _something_ vanished behind an asteroid. Whatever it was had gone, but the fur on Amelia's neck tingled as if they were still being watched.

"Keep a watch on that quarter, Mr Constantine," she said firmly.

"Should we alter course, ma'am?" Aurora was looking over, her lilac eyes showing genuine concern.

Amelia shook her head. "Steady as she goes, navigator."

"Aye, ma'am. Steady as she goes." Aurora hoped that she sounded like she meant it.

"Admiral?" Constantine joined Amelia at the railing. She glanced around at the Katydian briefly before she spoke softly.

"Have the ship's carpenter and his mates standing by," she said. "And tell Captain Gray to prepare sick bay to receive casualties. We're going to do as Dr Thatch says, but if this all goes south then we'll give the crew the best chance we can."

"As you say, ma'am." Constantine nodded.

"See to it now. Quietly." Amelia turned back to the sky as Constantine touched his hat and left.

Doppler watched him go and turned back to Milo, who was fidgeting with the compass.

"So, er...what happened last time you tried this?"

"Last time?" Audrey raised an eyebrow. "Last time the Leviathan came out of nowhere, smashed our ship until we abandoned it and then hunted down the longboats one by one until there were only a couple of dozen of us left alive out of more than two hundred."

"Were there any signs warning about it's approach?" Amelia asked.

"We heard it before we saw it," said Milo. "It's huge, but it's clever. And it's had thousands of years of experience of protecting Atlantis."

Doppler looked up again and actually saw it move – a great silvery-grey shape that darted out from behind the asteroid and disappeared just as quickly again behind another, though much closer.

"It's following us all right," he murmured.

"The word is _stalking_ ," said Amelia. "Hold your course, Ms Mayflower."

A sound rolled over them, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. It was a strange combination of a bestial roar and a mechanical rumble. Aurora looked down in shock as her displays flickered with static before steadying again as the sound died away.

"It's interfering with our electrical system, ma'am!"

"Can you protect our critical systems, Ms Ramirez?"

Amelia turned to Audrey, who nodded. "If we use the circuit-breakers, we should be able to isolate them."

"Do so. In the meantime, flag-lieutenant, steer by dead reckoning if you have to. Just keep us moving."

"Aye, ma'am!" Aurora licked her dry lips and watched an approaching asteroid carefully. "Helm, yaw seven degrees port, pitch negative four."

Amelia folded her arms as the flagship turned slowly to avoid another spinning rock. It was taking all her effort to restrain herself. Every naval instinct in her body was screaming at her to bring the ship about, turn into the shadowing enemy and force it to either fight or flee. But she knew that doing so could only be disastrous – the numberless wrecked ships drifting among the asteroids was proof of that – and so there was nothing to do but hold her nerve and press on. She hoped that her tension wasn't reflected in her face as she tried to maintain her commanding composure.

"Admiral?" Milo braced himself as he knew he was about to make an unpopular request, but it was necessary. "We need to shut everything off. As soon as we can."

Amelia looked at him and spoke slowly. "Shut everything off?"

"Everything. The engines, the thrusters, the computers. All of it. And right now."

"You realise that'll leave us drifting in the middle of an asteroid field with no ability to manoeuvre? To say nothing of how vulnerable that makes us if the Leviathan attacks."

Milo swallowed hard. "I-I know. We don't have enough time for me to fully explain, but to give ourselves the best chance, we need to be as quiet as possible."

There was a brief moment wherein Milo thought he might have been asking too much, and it took all his self-confidence to hold the Admiral's piercingly-sceptical gaze. But then he saw her give a small nod of satisfaction at his certainty.

"Very well, then." She turned away. "Ms Mayflower? Cut the engines. Ms Ramirez? Take the main drive offline and switch to emergency batteries. All hands, stand by for loss of power. "

Aurora stared in shock, but only for a moment, her faith in her Admiral overcoming her doubts about complying. "A-aye, ma'am. Engines to zero."

The steady thrum of the main engines was more noticeable by its sudden absence that its presence had ever been. The almost-imperceptible vibration of the ship's timbers ceased as the drive shut down, leaving the _Providence_ coasting on nothing but inertia. The silence only seemed to emphasise the metallic roar of the beast that lurked in the shadows the asteroids cast upon the ship even as the bright computer displays flickered and went out.

"That's it," Audrey looked up from the engineering console. "We're running on batteries. We've got artificial gravity and that's about all."

As if to underline the situation, another roar echoed from the asteroids. Amelia folded her hands behind her back.

"Very good, Ms Ramirez. As for you, Dr Thatch, if there was something you had in mind to do, I suggest you do it now..."

Milo nodded. "Right. Audrey? Come with me, please."

The only light on the darkened ship was the faint glow from Audrey and Milo's pendants. A glow that grew in strength as the roar drew nearer. Motioning for Audrey to join him, Milo made his way to the forecastle and waited in the silence.

"Uh, Milo?" Audrey looked around.

"Not yet," he said. "Not yet. Just...do as I do, okay?"

There was another roar, and the Leviathan surged into view spiralling through the asteroids and placing itself squarely in the ship's path. It resembled a terrestrial crustacean, but was bigger even than the _Providence,_ its shell made of silvery-grey metal and marked with intricate blue patterns. Its immense claws were stretched out and opened, its eyes ablaze with energy and its mouth open to reveal a white-hot glare, so blue that it was almost white.

"Milo!"

Audrey wasn't sure what she expected Milo to do, but it wasn't what he did. He simply brought down his pendant and tapped it against the sturdy timbers before holding it aloft. The engineer followed suit, her eyes widening in surprise at the faint bell-like tones produced by the crystals. Perhaps that was why the Leviathan's tone shifted as it charged towards them. It was resonating with the crystals, she realised, or at least they with it. The crystals' glow intensified as they seemed to almost buzz with anticipation, the Leviathan harmonising deeply with them as it approached. And when it seemed that a collision was inevitable, the massive guardian simply flicked its tail and soared over the _Providence_ with a ferocious and awesome sort of grace, disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived. Milo sighed with relief.

"Dr Thatch?"

Amelia had joined them on the forecastle, her expression severe. Milo cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to sound apologetic.

"Sorry I couldn't explain earlier, Admiral. I was pressed for time. See, the Leviathan's roar isn't just an intimidation device-"

"Dr Thatch?"

"- it's also a kind of echolocation device. It's looking for the resonating frequency that's unique to the Atlantean crystals-"

"Dr Thatch?"

"- I was afraid that with only two crystals, the sound would get lost with all of the other noises of the ship-"

" _Dr Thatch_." Amelia's tone finally cut through his rambling explanation. "As much as I am pleased with the outcome, I would very much have appreciated prior notice."

"I-I'm sorry, Admiral. I just didn't realise how-how much, uh... potential interference there'd be until the moment came. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't sure you'd let me do it if I tried to explain."

"Is that so? Well, let us all at least be glad that it worked." Amelia straightened her collar. "Do you have any objections to us getting underway again?"

Milo shook his head. "No. The Leviathan will recognise this ship now. It won't bother us again."

"And you have no more surprises in store for us?"

Milo shook his head. "Nope. We've got a clear path from here."

"Very good." Amelia nodded to Audrey. "And you can probably return to the engine room, Ms Ramirez."

"Thanks, Admiral, but I'd rather stay here." Audrey smiled. "It's been a while...and I'd like to be here when you first see it. Atlantis, I mean. We must be close."

"As you wish. My navigator tells me that the edge of the asteroid field is already in sight," said Amelia.

"Then we should be in sight of Atlantis any moment now," Milo felt his heart beating faster at the thought.

"I'll leave you to it, then." Amelia smiled and left the forecastle, returning to the bridge and noting the gentle movement as the ship's engines reengaged and pushed it back into motion.

"Amelia?" Doppler met her anxiously.

"Everything's all right, doctor," Amelia assured him. "I just reminded your colleague of the importance of informing the ship's command crew of his intentions. Status report, everyone?"

"Engines running ahead one-quarter, ma'am," said Aurora. "We'll be clear of the asteroids momentarily."

"And engineering reports all systems back online," said Constantine. "Power flow is steady on all circuits."

"Excellent. Then let's proceed."

The last asteroid slid past them on the starboard side, pirouetting gracefully as it was caught in the ship's wake. In front of them, the sky was a pale, unbroken blue haze. Doppler stood next to Amelia as they gazed ahead. There was a palpable air of expectancy as the _Providence_ left the asteroids far behind and crossed into the void beyond.

"I haven't felt like this since Treasure Planet," Doppler murmured.

Amelia smiled at him. "My dear Delbert," she said. "You always were a born adventurer."

Doppler laughed. "And you always were far too kind."

"Hardly." Amelia squeezed his hand. "Besides...I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit excited as well."

"And what's out there will put the significance of Treasure Planet in the shade." Doppler took a deep breath to calm his nerves. "I only hope-"

"Contact!" shouted a lookout from above. "Land in sight! Dead ahead!"

Abandoning his train of thought mid-sentence, Doppler stepped forward and strained his eyes to see. There was a dark shape in the distant haze, drawing closer with every moment. And then the bows pierced the edge of the mist and they found themselves sailing through open, clear space, towards a sight that took his breath away.

"Atlantis..."


	4. Chapter 4

It came into view slowly, dim shadows slowly resolving into distinct shapes. An island shaped like an upturned, flattened pyramid, several miles in diameter and crowned by the shapes of a city around which spread a water-filled plain dotted with a thousand outcrops of rock and masonry. An endless waterfall spilled from the edge, vapourising as it reached the etherium. Here and there, blue and green lights glowed amid the towers and domes, but above it all, hovering above the summit of the great central ziggurat-like tower, something shone like a beacon.

"That's it," Milo joined Amelia and Doppler, smiling almost proprietorially. "Quite something, isn't it?"

"It's breathtaking..." Doppler stared, open-mouthed.

"Call all hands to the deck, Commander," Amelia said quietly to Constantine. "The crew deserve to see this for themselves."

She raised a telescope to her eye and scanned the vista before them. Flying shapes could be seen moving over the city and she could make out a series of islands around the edge of the plateau. Atop each of them could be seen a humanoid figure, clearly a massive statue. It was hard maintain a sense of perspective against a backdrop of such grandeur. Features that had first seemed insignificant proved on second look to be hundreds of feet tall or wide. The watercourses flowing down the sides and base of the central tower, which she had initially thought were small streams, were revealed as torrential waterfalls. When she focused the telescope on the towers and buildings of the city, she saw shapes that seemed familiar to her, reminding her of the curving, organic architecture of Treasure Planet.

"Ma'am?" Aurora, wide-eyed with wonder, remembered enough of herself to speak.

Amelia took a deep breath and put the telescope aside. "Dr Thatch? I think we're in your territory now."

"There's a large terrace about halfway up the palace tower," Milo pointed. "We'll be able to pull in there. Kida will be waiting for us."

Amelia nodded. "Ms Mayflower? Take us in. Make your altitude two-five-zero."

"Aye, ma'am." Aurora ran her hands over her console. "All ahead one-quarter. Reef topsails and run on courses."

"Do I assume that's the Heart of Atlantis?" Doppler pointed to the shining light suspended over the city.

"That's right," Milo nodded.

"Well." Doppler smiled. "It's good to see it at last."

The _Providence_ swept in over the Atlantean coast. The crew all turned out on deck, crowding at the rails, staring and pointing things out. Doppler looked over the side and saw a small flotilla of boats bobbing on the crystal-blue water below with nets over the sides, their crews staring up at the tender as it sailed overhead in a state of astonishment at least as great as that with which they were regarded in turn. Flocks of small, white birds could be seen flitting across the island, calling to each other in musical voices. Faint shadows moved across the deck as the ship moved through the light of the Heart, which now rose high above them, orbited by its circle of graven plates.

"Ma'am! Flying craft approaching!" Midshipman Collis pointed to where a pair of silvery-grey shapes were curving up towards the ship. The figures on the back were astonishingly human in appearance, with white hair and brown skin marked with curling tattoos in blue. They hailed the ship, calling in a strange language. Milo hurried to respond, raising a hand and calling back.

" _Weydagosen bernot e kik!"_ he waved. _"Weydagosen!_ Go and tell the Queen!"

The Atlanteans waved in response and peeled off, their strange, fish-like flying machines humming harmonically as they went. Amelia joined Milo and watched then go.

"Dr Thatch?"

"I told them I was bringing visitors." Milo smiled. "They'll go ahead and tell Kida. Don't worry, everything will be all right. The Atlantean language is a universal root dialect. You won't need any translators when you meet her yourself."

"I'm pleased to hear it." Amelia looked up at the palace as they neared it, taking in the colossal scale of its domes and pillars. "Well, then. Let's get ready. Ms Mayflower? Hand over helm control to Mr Pike. Major Tansley? Assemble a guard of honour. Mr Constantine? Parade the crew at the port railing and call Ms Ramirez to the deck. All the bells and whistles, ladies and gentlemen. Let's do this by the book."

* * *

The terrace was circular and at least a hundred metres across, built of grey stone inlaid with an intricate pattern. Quite a crowd had already gathered there, watching in amazement as the _Providence_ approached. The big tender was a remarkable sight as it pulled alongside the terrace, white sails billowing, aglow with energy. More Atlanteans arrived, running down the vast stone stairs from the palace entrance and forming a corridor, holding back the mass of people. Doppler, watching them from the quarterdeck as the ship slowed and began manoeuvring in towards the edge of the terrace, guessed them to be palace guards – they were tall, wore togas of a vivid blue and carried polearms of unrecognisable design. Somewhere, a great horn sounded.

"It's incredible," he said. "Just incredible."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Milo and Audrey were by his side. With the engineer's help and capable elbows, the two scientists had eventually managed to secure a place for themselves as the crew fell in neatly along the length of the port side of the ship, forming two neat rows stretching from the forecastle to the bridge steps in obedience to the shouts of the bosun and his petty officers. Amelia arrived, resplendent in her full dress uniform, the gold braid shining and the white facings spotless and bright. They turned and saw her, Doppler smiling in admiration at his wife's appearance but Milo's eyes settling uneasily on the gold-hilted sword at her side.

"Er, Admiral? With respect, I'm not sure that carrying a weapon is such a good idea."

Amelia looked down. "I'm afraid it's protocol, Dr Thatch. Just part of the uniform."

"Yes, I know, but...last time a stranger brought a weapon into the presence of the ruler of Atlantis, they ended up killing them." Milo smiled awkwardly. "It might bring back a lot of bad memories for Kida. It was her father, after all."

Amelia considered for a moment, and then nodded. She unbuckled the clasp of her sword and handed it to a spacer. "Take that to my steward and have it put back into storage. Would a guard of honour cause a diplomatic incident, doctor?"

Milo looked at where a squad of Royal Marines was falling-in behind them on the quarterdeck, under the close inspection of Tansley. "No...Kida has guards as well. But they should keep their distance."

"There's quite a crowd forming down there," Amelia pointed out.

"It's just curiosity. Remember that Atlantis has never seen a ship like this one. Or...anyone who doesn't look like them, for that matter. Even I was an object of interest even though humans are directly descended from Atlanteans. People like you and Delbert..." Milo grinned nervously at the feline admiral. "Well, you're going to be kind of a novelty."

"As you say, Dr Thatch. Your advice has yet to be proven wrong." Amelia looked around as Aurora and Constantine joined them, clad in their own ceremonial uniforms.

"Standing by to dock, ma'am," said Constantine. "We'll have to put a gangway down and hold her there with the thrusters until we can get her moored."

"Very good, Commander," Amelia nodded. "That will do."

Tansley arrived and saluted. "Honour guard ready, ma'am."

"Thank you, major." Amelia returned the salute. "Have your marines follow us at twenty paces. And keep your bayonets sheathed."

"Ma'am?" Tansley looked surprised.

"I know it's not strictly according to the drill, but it's for the best." Amelia glanced at Milo, who nodded his assent. "We must tread carefully here."

There was a series of heavy thuds and other wooden noises as a team of spacers hauled a gangway into position, opening up a hinged gate in the port quarterdeck railing and pushing it into place. The ship crept closer and closer to the edge of the terrace until the gangway was finally able to bridge the gap, its bottom end scraping across the Atlantean masonry – the first official physical contact between the new empire and the old. The horn sounded again, and a lone figure emerged from the palace and began making its way down the stairs. Milo felt his heart begin beating a little faster as he recognised it.

"It's her! That's Kida."

"Then let's not keep her waiting." Amelia brushed an invisible speck of dust from the row of decorations on her chest and surveyed her officers one last time. "Let's go and make some history. Dr Thatch? Ms Ramirez? With me up front."

Amelia stepped onto the gangway as the figure from the palace reached the flat of the terrace and began making its way up the corridor cleared by the warriors, who stood rigidly to attention as it passed. Amelia moved down the gangway and stepped onto the stone at the bottom. Milo and Audrey followed her close behind and stood beside her. Doppler wished he could do likewise, but any disappointment was overwhelmed by the sense of occasion. He followed Constantine and Aurora down the gangway and took up position with the small party as Amelia led them forwards. Behind them, Tansley and the marine guards trooped down neatly and formed a short line of scarlet and white, snapping to attention themselves, the barrels of their rifles gleaming in the light of the Heart, now almost directly overhead.

"I can't believe this is happening," murmured Aurora, her lilac eyes shining.

"I know what you mean." Doppler checked his ascot for straightness one last time and looked up to see the lone figure ahead of them much closer now. It was a young woman, a little on the short side but made taller by her white hair and golden headdress. Like most of her people, she wore blue, but edged with dark red and gold. A crystal pendant hung at the centre of her chest – and Doppler now saw that every Atlantean seemed to sport one – and her left cheek was marked with a blue tattoo. Doppler saw her bright blue eyes glance across the group as they neared, and linger a fraction of a second longer on Milo, a flash of a smile passing over her handsome features. She stopped a short way ahead of the Imperial party and spread her hands as she spoke.

"Welcome to the city of Atlantis," she said. "I am Queen Kidagakash Nedakh. You come to this place of places as honoured friends."

"The honour is ours, Queen Kidagakash. I am Vice-Admiral Amelia of Her Most Imperial Majesty's Royal Navy," said Amelia, removing her hat to make a bow and faintly impressing Milo at having got Kida's name right on the first try. "On behalf of Queen Illysa II, I extend the greetings of the Empire and our sincerest hopes for peace and prosperity between our peoples."

"Vice-Admiral." Kida returned the bow, though there was a note of hesitation at the military title. "You are welcome in Atlantis. Aside from anything else, I see that you have returned something of mine."

"Er, yes. Hi, Kida." Milo grinned and waved. "These are the people I told you about. Well, some of them. Well, one of them. This one." He waved at Doppler, who blinked and almost tripped over his feet as he took his cue to step forward.

"Um, Dr Delbert Doppler at your service. Of the University of Montressor. Er. I'm an astrophysicist."

"As...trophysicist?" Kida puzzled at the unfamiliar word and glanced at Milo, who nodded.

"He can help us, Kida. He's the friend I told you about. The one I went to find."

"Ah." Kida bowed to him. "Then we are especially fortunate, Dr Delbert. Milo has spoken well of you."

"He has? Oh. Um. Thank you." Dopper looked flustered.

"May I also introduce my Flag-Lieutenant, Aurora Mayflower, and my first officer, Lieutenant-Commander Tobias Constantine." Amelia gestured to the officers, who each bowed in turn. "Of course, I believe you already know Audrey Ramirez."

"Very well. And what a wonderful surprise it is to see you again, Audrey." Kida smiled.

"Hey, Kida." Audrey grinned. "I'm kind of surprised to be here again, too."

"I am sure there is a story to tell." Kida turned back to the group. "Will your vessel be remaining there?"

"With your approval, your majesty. Though I would beg your permission to arrange proper moorings," said Amelia. "I regret that it may require an amount of stonework to make her fast."

"Whatever you require." Kida nodded. "It would be the least we can do for your after your long journey. And once you have made your arrangements, your crew is free to disembark. Atlantis welcomes all of you."

"You are most gracious, your majesty," Amelia gave a small bow. "Mr Constantine? Arrange a shore leave roster. One watch to remain on board at all times."

"Aye, ma'am. And may I request permission to supervise the mooring operation?"

"If your majesty approves?" Amelia looked around at Kida, who nodded.

"Of course. And you need not continue to use my title, Vice-Admiral," Kida smiled. "You have left your homes to come to our aid. You can simply call me Kida."

"Then you need not use my title either, Kida." Amelia smiled back. "'Amelia' will suffice."

"As you wish, Amelia." Kida held out her hand to Milo, who took it warmly and traded a loving glance with her. "Now, can I invite you to my chambers? We have a great deal to discuss."

* * *

"I must say," said Kida, "when Milo left, I did not think he would return with an entire expedition like this. He said he was only going to go and find you, Dr Doppler."

"Well, he certainly did that," said Doppler. "It's just that...well, Amelia was the one who knew how to get us here."

"I can assure you that secrecy was maintained throughout," said Amelia. "Only my officers and I knew of our destination before departure. Dr Thatch explained how important it was that your existence remain secret."

"It would appear that the secret is now out," said Kida. "Though I am sure you would not have brought a crew you did not trust."

"One mutiny is quite enough for my lifetime," Amelia smiled. "But if I may, there is no danger from the crew. If we do our jobs right, Atlantis will be able to return to hiding. And besides, you must understand that as far as most of the rest of the galaxy is concerned, this place is nothing more than mythology. Even if some loose-lipped spacers did try to tell the tale, the only harm that they would cause is to their own reputations."

"Yes, Milo told me of all the stories that have grown up around our legacy." Kida chuckled. "Some of them were very far-fetched."

"And yet some hardly do justice to the truth," Aurora murmured. She had been gazing around in awe ever since they entered the palace and now finally wrenched her attention back to the group.

"That's very kind of you," Kida smiled at her, proud features shining.

"Well, it's true," said Milo. "I know how she feels. Even now sometimes."

"I'm not surprised," said Aurora. "This place...it's incredible."

She looked around again. The group had gathered on a raised balcony inside the palace, overlooking a great conical chamber nearly forty metres high. The floor of the chamber was a glittering pond across which stepping stones traced intricate geometric patterns as they approached the central island. A cluster of statuary towered up from it towards the distant ceiling, small waterfalls tumbling musically between them and sending ripples across the crystal surface of the pool. Occasional flocks of some kind of small flying creature flitted through, too fast for her eyes to follow.

"Normally I would receive guests down there," said Kida. "But in this case I do not think it would be appropriate. After all, you are here as friends as well."

"We're most grateful for you hospitality, all the same," said Amelia, indicating the low, stone tables that were set between the group. Kida's attendants had furnished them with bowls of colourful fruits and golden carafes of what Doppler had assumed to be their juices. The tastes were unfamiliar to everyone other than Milo, but pleasant and light.

"After coming all this way, I think it is the least we can do for you," said Kida. "After all, we are counting on you. I assume that Milo explained our situation?"

"He did," nodded Amelia. "And I can promise that we'll do our very best."

"If there is anything you need, please let me know." Kida said. "We will do all that we can as well."

"I'd defer to my experts on that," Amelia gestured towards Doppler and Aurora.

"And I'd hardly know where to begin!" Doppler grinned nervously. "I certainly wouldn't want to claim _expert_ status, either."

"Well, if there are any questions you would need answered, we will do our best to answer them," said Kida. Her face fell for a moment. "Though I fear that there is still much that we do not remember."

"Er." Doppler looked around at Amelia for diplomatic inspiration. "Perhaps...perhaps if we could see a little of your city?"

"Good idea," said Milo. "I'd be glad to see it as well. I'm not going to lie; I have missed it."

"Of course." Kida smiled. "I would be glad to show you. When would you like to begin?"

Amelia glanced at her husband and her navigator, and saw the sparkle of discovery in their eyes. She couldn't suppress a grin at their enthusiasm.

"I think we're ready now, if that suits you," she said.

"Naturally, Amelia." Kida smiled again and stood. "If you would all care to follow me?"

* * *

Atlantis had indeed changed since Audrey had last seen it. The stones had been scrubbed and restored, the ivy-like growth of centuries had been scraped away and some of the larger rockfalls had been cleared away. Faded murals had been restored in blue, red and white. Carvings which had been on the verge of vanishing through erosion had been renewed. Milo and Kida had clearly been busy, and they led the tour as if they were a proud couple hosting a housewarming, pointing out significant projects and obstacles that had been overcome. Their pride and energy seemed to have transmitted itself to the city, which seemed somehow more alive than Audrey remembered it. It was as if she had previously seen Atlantis in the last fade of autumn and was now seeing the first growth of a new spring and she couldn't help admiring the scale of the revival. Even the light seemed different and parts of the city she recalled being in shadow were now bathed in radiance from the Heart, which hung above the great palace like a gentle sun. Kida led the group out onto a balcony hundreds of feet high, and everywhere she looked she could see signs of the progress that had been made, the swift, silvery shapes of Atlantean flying machines criss-crossing the water and curving through the sky between the musical flocks of birds.

"It's almost like a different place," she said. "You've done so much."

"Well, there's a lot to do," said Milo. "And we're still only at the beginning in so many ways. But we're getting there. Of course, recharging the Heart will help us to do even more."

"What do you have in mind?'

"Well, getting the streetlights back would be something." Milo smiled. "If my reading of the texts are right, there are systems in Atlantis that haven't been used for millennia. We may be able to reactivate them."

"I remember when the streets were lit," said Kida wistfully. "It was only a thousand years ago that the lights went out."

"You _remember_?" said Aurora, her eyes wide. "I mean – you remember, your majesty? How is that possible?"

"You did not tell them?" Kida looked at Milo, who grinned.

"Er...no. I figured it was going to be hard enough to sell them on Atlantis, never mind telling them how old you are."

"Ah. Well, then." Kida smiled at Aurora. "Atlantean royalty have a...special relationship with the Heart. As it sustains all of Atlantis, so it also sustains us."

"So – bearing in mind that one normally doesn't ask this of a woman – just how old are you?" Amelia looked curious.

"Milo tells me I would be considered around 8,800 by your reckoning," Kida smiled at the looks on her visitors' faces. "You seem surprised."

"No more than I was, I'm sure," said Milo.

"If it helps to know, the surprise comes on both sides," said Kida. "The first group to find us – Milo's group – were all human. When he went to find you, doctor, I assumed you would be too. So to find you amongst us now...truly the galaxy is a place of wonder."

"I...suppose that makes sense," said Doppler. "I mean, when your civilisation was at its height, ours were still working out how to daub ochre onto cave walls. It's understandable if you didn't notice us."

"There is so much I would ask you about the rest of the universe," Kida said. "Of course Milo has told me a great deal, but I would dearly love to know more. We have missed so much."

"Some of it was worth missing," said Amelia, thinking of the recent war.

"Yes, perhaps. But still...the day may come when Atlantis retakes its place amongst the races of the galaxy. We would do well to know what awaits us."

"Well...should that day ever come, the Empire would extend a hand of friendship to you," Amelia said. "But I'd urge caution. I doubt that you'd consider the galaxy improved since your time."

"In what ways?"

Amelia smiled wryly. "Well, the continued existence of my profession, for one," she said. "The Empire faces threats from all sides – pirates and separatists within, hostile foreign powers without. And I'm certain that they would say the same of us. Dr Thatch timed his travel well – a mere few months earlier and he would have found himself in the midst of the last major war. And who knows what might have happened to your city had he been captured by the wrong side?"

Kida nodded and looked sad. "I see. So there is conflict still."

"As far as I'm aware, there always has been," said Amelia. "We've just got...better at it, in some ways."

"Conflict is not unknown to us," said Kida quietly. "Though Atlantis was supreme during our golden age, there was still a need for it. In fact, that is what brought about our fall."

"How so?" asked Doppler.

Milo looked at Kida with concern, knowing the painful truth but not wanting to intrude on what was so personal a matter for her. A brief flicker of pain passed over her face before she replied, turning away to gaze out over the balcony at the waterscape below.

"We call it the _mabelmok,_ " she began quietly. "The Great Sundering. It was a long time ago. Back when Atlantis was at the height of its power and the Heart watched over our empire and this city stood on the plains of a green and fertile planet. The king back then...tried to use the Heart for something it was not meant for. As a weapon. He tried to use it to contain the full power of a mighty star, thinking that it could be unleashed at his will. But it couldn't. There was too much, and anyway the Heart can only store energy for preservation and protection, not for destruction. The Heart rejected the power. The planet broke apart. This city was saved because of the Shield of Atlantis, a great protective barrier projected by the sentinels that stand guard around the edge. The Shield kept the city intact, but the storm of energy was still raging from the star that had been desecrated. The only way to escape was to take the city out of the universe. So now this is all that's left."

"Oh. I'm very sorry." Doppler looked down. "I saw the fracture lines in the asteroids and wondered what could possibly have had that power...now I see."

"Millions died. Our civilisation was nearly destroyed. But this city survived...as did the fragmenting planet as it was caught when it moved. It formed the asteroid belt that isolated us, and it was sheer chance that the Leviathan survived as well." Kida sighed. "And we remained hidden ever since. Excepting those occasions when the Heart required new energy. In part, our seclusion was to give us time to recover, to rebuild...but in truth, it was a penance. For our arrogance."

"That's how so much of Atlantis' history came to be lost," said Milo. "Centuries of isolation...and a desire to forget what had happened to them."

Kida nodded. "It was foolish. But the pain was too great to face. And were it not for Milo, I am sure that our decline would have continued until the legends you tell of us would be all that was left of us."

"Well, not _all_ of it," said Doppler. "There are traces of Atlantis still out there."

"There are?" Kida looked up suddenly. "What kind of traces?"

"Lost artifacts. Things that have themselves becomes legends," said Amelia. "We've encountered a few of them ourselves."

"What were they?"

"Two navigational devices, rather like the one Dr Thatch had with him when he came to us," Amelia nodded to him. "One of what we believe were your mining ships. And...a place that was known to us as Treasure Planet."

Kida frowned. "I do not know of such a thing."

"It was originally something else," Doppler explained. "A great machine that could open portals to...to anywhere, as far as we could tell."

"The Gate Engine?" Kida's eyes widened. "I do remember that...it was the heart of our empire. It was how we sent our ships across the galaxy. It still exists?"

"Ah." Doppler looked embarrassed. "Well...no."

"A notorious pirate discovered it and exploited it to loot and pillage wherever they wanted," said Amelia. "He stored the spoils of his crimes there but never revealed the location of it, hence the legend of Treasure Planet. When we discovered it...the pirate had sabotaged it. It was destroyed."

"Oh." Kida looked crestfallen. "I am sorry."

"I feel I should be the one apologising for bearing such bad news," said Amelia sympathetically.

"And what of our other artifacts that you have found?" Kida looked up again.

"Alas, one of the navigational devices was destroyed with Treasure Planet," Amelia said. "But the other one still exists. As for the ship...I'm afraid it was destroyed as well. It's rather a long story. But it was necessary to ensure the safety of my own ship and crew."

"I see." Kida was downcast again. "I...am sorry."

"It's not all bad news, though," said Doppler, hoping to cheer the queen up a little. "Between those various encounters, we've learned something of how your technology works. I'm hopeful that experience will help us to help you now."

"I've been working with Delbert on the voyage here," Milo said. "The Shepherd's Journal mentions stories from the last time that Atlantis was moved back into the universe to recharge the Heart. It's given us a few leads."

"I was only a small girl when that was done," said Kida. "I'm afraid I don't really remember anything."

"The Journal speaks of a place called..." Milo hastily rummaged in his satchel to produce the dog-earned tome, which he opened and leafed through its halo of bookmarks. "Wait for it...wait...ah, yes. The Chamber of All Things. Does that mean anything to you, Kida?"

Kida frowned as she racked her memory. "Now that you mention it...there is a room high up in the palace tower. My father used to spend a lot of his time there when he was younger and could still climb all of the stairs."

She raised her head to look up the near-sheer side of the great ziggurat. The others did likewise. Doppler swallowed nervously.

"Yes, I can see why that would have been a factor," said Audrey.

"Well," Amelia winked at Doppler and Milo. "It looks like you two have another expedition to mount..."

* * *

 _There were no planets out here. Only a thin haze of cloud. As if this was a corner of the universe that the powers of creation had forgotten to fill in. Even most of the stars were nothing but faint glimmers, like the lights of a remote city spread across the night sky. But in the midst of the void there hung a stellar cluster, shining a radiant blue like the gemstones which gave this desolate reach of space its name – the Sapphire Deeps._

 _But the jewels were not alone. Almost invisible in the dark of night, a massive shape moved through the clouds, drifting under its own inertia. Twin hulls set either side of a fortified central tower, the whole sinister form clad in pitted, rust-streaked metal. It showed no lights, yet unblinking eyes peered from the ramparts of the tower towards the blue stars, regarding them with an analytical coldness. Blind to the beauty of the stars, they were dissecting their light for wavelengths and probing their spectra with mechanical precision. They looked with purpose but without passion, searching and seeking._

 _And finding._

 _Smoke belched from the Dreadnought's funnels, engines flared, and thirty thousand tons of iron and steel began to advance towards the distant sapphires._

* * *

Doppler leaned against the wall to catch his breath and adjust his spectacles. Milo was a short way ahead, sitting on the rounded base of a pillar.

"How...how many is that so far?" the linguist asked.

"One thousand, nine hundred and thirty-eight steps." Doppler swallowed. "Give or take. I must admit that I lost track of things somewhere in the early fourteen hundreds. No wonder Kida's father stopped climbing up here. This chamber had better be worth it."

"It will be," said Milo. "The Journal says the Chamber of All Things shows...well, all things. Including Atlantis. It was built to display all the territories of Atlantis. Which, back in the day, was basically everything, I guess."

Doppler nodded and pushed himself back into motion. "Well...we'd better keep going then..."

The palace of Atlantis had grown almost organically over the millennia, with new chambers being carved out of the living rock of what Doppler assumed had one been a great granite monolith, new domes sprouting almost like mushrooms along its flanks. The illogical, unplanned layout was a challenge all by itself, and it wasn't helped by the fact that many of the carven corridors were half-choked with vegetation or even fallen rubble.

"Sorry," said Milo, as they pressed through a thicket of ivy. "I'm afraid this part of the city hasn't been much of a priority for us. The restoration hasn't caught up with it."

"No, I understand," said Doppler. "I mean...nobody lives up here. It must have been abandoned for centuries."

"Something like that." Milo stopped and ran his finger over a faded carving in an exposed patch of wall. "It reminds me of how much there's still to do."

"You'll have the time for it," said Doppler. "Kida's what, nearly nine thousand years old?"

Milo smiled sadly. "Yeah...but that's her."

"What do you mean?"

"She's Atlantean royalty. Their bloodline has a special connection to the Heart that extends their lives. The Heart connects to every Atlantean though these crystals-" Milo held up his pendant, "-but the royals have a personal connection."

"But...aren't you kind of royalty yourself now that you've married her? Aren't you technically the king now, if she's the queen?"

"I understand the technical term is 'Prince Consort.' But we're not sure the Heart works like that. I am human, after all, not full Atlantean." Milo shrugged. "I mean, I know I'll get some benefit from my crystal, but I don't think I'll live for thousands of years like she does."

"So..." Doppler thought it through. "Please understand that I don't mean to be rude or depressing or anything, but...doesn't that mean she'll outlive you by...well, by quite a lot?"

Milo nodded and gave another sad smile. "Probably. But that just means we have to make every moment we do have together count for the most."

"Well, it's hard to see how you could be doing anything more meaningful than you are now," said Doppler. "I mean...it doesn't get much bigger than saving an entire race."

"I guess not." Milo consulted the Journal once again. "Though I have to admit...that I'm doing this for Kida helps as well."

Doppler smiled at his friend. "I'm glad you found her. Though I'm afraid I'll have trouble thinking of you as 'Prince Milo' for a while."

Milo laughed. "It's been six years and _I'm_ still having trouble thinking like that. But it's not being a prince that's the hard part. It's being married to a queen."

"I suppose that would be a bit of a paradigm shift," Doppler chuckled.

"Especially one who takes her role so seriously," said Milo. "She takes on such a burden...it's the least I can do to help her carry it."

"She does seem to take her responsibilities to heart," said Doppler. "And to get so involved herself."

"It's a bit easier for her than it is for Queen Illysa," said Milo. "After all, she's only got this one city to look after."

"And it looks like the two of you have worked wonders on the place," said Doppler.

"Well, it's kind of personal for her." Milo took a deep breath. "The king who tried to turn the Heart into a weapon...the king who caused the Great Sundering and the fall of Atlantis..."

Doppler looked on expectantly as a complicated look played over Milo's face. "Yes?"

"Well...he was her father."

"Her father?" Doppler stopped and stared.

"Hence why she's not the most comfortable with the idea of organised violence," said Milo. "And other things. She's got a whole mess of contradictions to work through. She wants to restore the glory of Atlantis, but she's afraid of what that'll mean for the galaxy. She loved her father and wants to remember him fondly, but she can't forget his mistakes. And she fears that, given the power, she'll make the same ones."

"Oh." Doppler looked down. "I see...that is quite a burden. She's lucky to have you."

"Yeah, well." Milo looked a little embarrassed. "Of either of our partners to be overawed by...you're the one who married an Admiral."

Doppler grinned. "Well, technically she was a Captain at the time..."

"Details," said Milo. "I mean, I imagine they don't make you an Admiral for nothing, especially at her age. She must be one heck of a leader."

"Well...yes. I guess she is." Doppler scratched his head. "You know, it's funny, but I've never thought of her that way. I know what she's done and I respect and admire her more than I can tell you, but...it's still kind of hard to think of her like that. Maybe it's because I still worry about her every time she goes to space anyway – the thought of her having to engage in heroics wouldn't help me sleep."

"It's not about heroics," said Milo. "Rourke was a 'war hero' and he was a monster. Amelia leads by example. Have you talked with her officers about what she did during the Ironclad War? About how she lost her last flagship taking on the entire Procyon fleet by herself to buy time for her crew to escape and the reinforcements to come up?"

Doppler nodded slowly. "I...I know. But I don't like thinking about that, either."

"Why not?"

Doppler sighed. "The way I found out about it...I was expecting to see her ship pull back into Crescentia, safe and sound, like it always has done dozens of times before. Instead, I saw a news poster saying that it had been lost. I didn't find out that she'd survived until that night when she made it back aboard another vessel. The hours in between...were some of the worst in my life."

"I can imagine." Milo looked at him sympathetically. "Really. I thought I lost Kida once, too."

"What happened?"

"It was when the mercenary crew I sailed with showed their true colours," said Milo. "In order to save Atlantis, the Heart took Kida."

Doppler blinked. "Uh...you might have to explain that one to me. I thought the Heart was some kind of...living power source? How can it 'take' anyone?"

"You remember how I said the royal family has a special relationship with it?" Milo stopped and turned to face him.

"Yes?"

"Well...in order to activate some of its higher powers...like the shield...the Heart has to merge with a member of the royal family. Before you ask me, I don't know why. Maybe it needs a living intellect to guide it or something. It took Kida's mother when Atlantis was destroyed – that's the other thing she didn't tell you about how that happened. It took her mother and used her to activate the sentinels to project the shield which saved the city. But she was lost to it forever. And then it took Kida as well and used her to save the city in her turn. And I wasn't sure it would give her back. It did, but...apparently it doesn't always."

"I see." Doppler shook his head and gave a weary grin. "We managed to marry some extraordinary women, didn't we?"

Milo laughed, breaking the seriousness. "Yeah, I guess we did."

A thought struck Doppler. "So...this 'merging with the Heart' thing...that doesn't have to happen to move Atlantis, does it?"

Milo shook his head. "No. There's no mention of that in the Journal. Everything's done by this Chamber we're heading to."

"Oh. Good." They were scrambling over a pile of fallen masonry where part of a domed roof and wall had caved in. Through the gap left behind, Doppler could see a spectacular panorama of Atlantis and was surprised to see how far they had climbed. From hundreds of metres up, he could see the curving edge of the city and, far below, the _Providence_ looked like a miniature toy.

"Quite a view, isn't it?" said Milo, seeing him looking.

Doppler nodded. "Sorry. Yes. Distractingly so."

"I understand." Milo reached back to lend him a hand over the rubble. "I'm still not used to it either. After all that time looking for it...now that I'm here it can be like a dream."

Doppler caught the look in his eye. "Your grandfather would be proud of you, Milo."

Milo smiled. "Well, I sure hope so."

"I know so." Doppler smiled back and reached out a hand to pat Milo on the shoulder. "In fact-whoa!"

The broken tile he was standing on suddenly slipped out from underneath him and he descended the other side of the pile of rock in a frantic slide.

"Delbert!" Milo hopped down after him. "Are you all right?"

Doppler sat up and straightened his spectacles as he took stock. "Nothing harmed except my dignity it seems."

Milo looked up and grinned. "Well, would it help if I told you we were there?"

"What?" Doppler stood as Milo helped him to his feet. They were standing in front of a stone door carved into the end of the corridor. Swirling runes covered it, spiralling in towards a circular central icon marked with dozens of tiny star-like gemstones.

"This is it," said Milo, reading the script. "The Chamber of All Things."

Doppler peered at the door. "How do we open it? There's not even a handle."

Milo grinned and stepped forward, taking out his crystal pendant. He tapped it on the circle's central star and stood back.

"Here goes nothing," he said.

Doppler watched, wide-eyed, as a blue glow suffused the circle, flowing out like water to illuminate the runes around it. Slowly, the great doors opened and swung soundlessly backward into a darkened space beyond. The cool, musty air of a long-neglected room met them as they stepped forward, Doppler drawing a small electric lantern from his satchel. He checked the filament and then switched it on, opening the bullseye shutter with fingers that shook with anticipation. The bright light sprang forth into the darkness.

"Oh, my," he said, panning it around.

"I'll say," said Milo, taking in what the narrow, yellow beam revealed. "So...where do we start?"


	5. Chapter 5

Despite Kida's assurances that the crew of the _Providence_ were welcome anywhere in Atlantis and that they were free to wander the city at will, Amelia – who had some experience about what spacers got up to on shore leave – had directed Constantine to set up strict boundaries, policed by Tansley's marines, though the soldiers had been ordered to leave their rifles and bayonets on board. That a full watch cycle was maintained aboard the _Providence_ helped to discourage distant roaming by requiring spacers to report to their posts on schedule. It also discouraged spacers from engaging in any behaviour which might render them unfit for duty, a point Amelia made sure was reinforced by the ship's petty officers. Despite the restrictions thus placed upon them, the crew had taken to their leave with high spirits, apparently thankful for any opportunity to leave the ship and explore the strange new world they found themselves in.

Or rather, most of them had. Amelia had checked the crew book in which each spacer and officer's disembarkation and return were recorded, and sighed a well-practised sigh at discovering that one name had been made prominent by its absence. Putting the book aside, she set off below decks towards the sick bay.

* * *

Dr Gray was at her desk when she heard the brisk knocking on her door. She stood, putting aside the textbook she had been reading, and went to open it, already reaching out with her other hand to the portable medical bag she kept handy on the wall nearby.

"Not interrupting, am I?" Amelia grinned.

Gray shook her head as she stepped back and reached for her notepad instead of the bag. I'M PRETTY SURE YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOCK, ADMIRAL.

"Still, politeness never harmed anyone. Despite whatever it was they teach you people at the Fleet Medical School." Amelia grinned.

Gray rolled her eyes. AM I REQUIRED?

"I've come to ask you something, if that's what you mean." Amelia closed the office door behind her. "I see that you haven't scheduled a time to go ashore."

Gray shrugged. Amelia raised an eyebrow.

"You _are_ planning to go ashore, aren't you? We could be here for some time, and you can't spend it all on board this ship."

The surgeon shrugged again. I HAVE WORK HERE.

"Barely," said Amelia. "We've no casualties and no intention of acquiring any. If there's an emergency, we can always call you back if you're not here at the time. Besides, your staff _are_ fully trained and competent, are they not?"

OF COURSE. Gray's nose wrinkled in minor irritation at how Amelia had anticipated her arguments for remaining where she was.

"Are you really going to pass this chance up? This isn't just another port call, you realise." Amelia tried to sound wry. "This is _Atlantis_ , Eleanor. You're never going to be here again. You're never going to see anything like it."

ALL PLANETS AND CULTURES ARE UNIQUE, Gray pointed out.

"How many are the subject of thousands of years of myth and legend, though?"

FAME IS NOT AN OBJECTIVE MEASUREMENT.

It was a song they had danced to before. Amelia's smile was as thin as her patience was becoming. This was a fantastic opportunity and it was aggravating to see her close friend squander it due to something as mundane as social aversion.

"So what happens when we get back? Are you really going to tell Ko you came all this way and spent the whole time admiring the walls of your sickbay?"

Normally, the presence of the grey felinid would help tip the scales in Amelia's favor in such circumstances as this, as she was the only other living creature able to penetrate the surgeon's frosty insularity. Luckily, despite her absence, the name alone was as effective a weapon. Gray's long ears twitched at the mention. Amelia noticed the reaction and pressed her case.

"Remember Torsten's World? Corsingard? Hansa Prime?"

Gray appeared to relent slightly.

HANSA PRIME WAS SURPRISINGLY PLEASANT.

"Yes, it was. And I'm sure Ko would appreciate a souvenir of Atlantis."

SHE WOULD. Gray conceded.

"So..." Amelia raised her eyebrow again. "You'll take leave? For her sake, if not for mine. I certainly know you won't take it for your own."

Gray gave what was probably a sigh. She nodded.

Amelia smiled. "Thank you."

Gray nodded and looked at her quizzically. Amelia grinned.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to escort you off the ship. Go in your own time. But make sure you go."

I WILL.

Amelia nodded goodbye and closed the door behind her. Gray listened to her footsteps receding and then went back to her desk, where she opened a drawer and took out a small photograph of a grey-furred felinid with a distinctive scar on her face. She studied it for a moment, then sighed and put it away again, but there was a new light in her eyes as she did so.

 _The things I do for you_ , she thought wryly.

* * *

Amelia stepped back onto the quarterdeck, shaking her head about her old friend but at least satisfied at the conclusion that was reached. She was still thinking about it when she was interrupted by a call from Lieutenant Pike on the bridge.

"Ma'am! We're being signalled!"

"Signalled?" Amelia frowned and hurried to join him. Midshipman Collis handed her a telescope and she looked around to see where to aim it. "Where from?"

"From the...er, castle, ma'am." Pike raised his hand and pointed. Amelia followed his finger to a dark patch high up on the cliff-like sides of the palace tower above them. At first she saw nothing, but then a light flickered against the dark and she realised that she was looking at a hole in the palace's exterior wall – a hole through which someone was flashing a Morse signal. She opened her telescope and put it to her eye to read it. Pike already has his telescope zeroed in and was reading out the letters even as they came in an irregular series of flashes that suggested that the sender was trying to remember the code as they went along.

"A-M-L-I-A C-M H-R-E," he said. "B-R-I-G K-I-D-A. Uh...it's not standard naval language, ma'am."

"I suspect that's because it's not being sent by naval personnel." Amelia smiled. "Still, the meaning is clear enough. It would seem that Dr Doppler and Dr Thatch have found something up there – I only wonder what they've found that they need me for. Signal our acknowledgement by heliograph, Mr Pike."

"Aye, ma'am." Pike nodded and opened one of the storage lockers situated around the bridge, extracting a polished steel plate and beginning to position it to reflect the light of the Heart back up in reply. Amelia folded her telescope and handed it back to Collis as she turned to leave.

"I'll be at the palace," she said. "I imagine I'll find out why once I get there."

"Very good, ma'am." Pike touched his hat to her as she left the bridge. She mounted the gangway and paused for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder to check that Pike was returning the signal, before continuing.

* * *

Far up, standing in the breach of the broken wall and holding Doppler's electric lantern in one hand, Milo peered down towards the terrace below.

"So do you think they saw it?" he said.

Doppler nodded. He was sitting well behind Milo on the side of the pile of rubble, trying to avoid looking at the dizzying drop outside. "Oh, yes. Those flashes from the ship must have been some sort of acknowledgement."

"Do you know what it said?"

"I'm afraid I'm not entirely familiar with naval signals," said Doppler. "We're just lucky you remembered enough Morse to send a message at all."

"Well, I can't promise that I got everything right," said Milo. "It's been a long time since I last had to use it. It's fun, though. Turning a language into a kind of mathematical code. I wonder if there's a way to bring linguistics and mathematics into a new analytical paradigm?"

Doppler smiled at him. "You sound like you're proposing a new PhD topic."

Milo chuckled and climbed back from the breach to join him. "Yeah, right...two was enough."

"So you don't miss academia?"

"Compared to all this? Are you kidding?" Milo grinned.

"I suppose if you put it like that..." Doppler agreed.

Milo's grin faded. "Still...I'd be lying if I said there weren't some things I miss. I left everything behind to come here. Not just my job, either. I know I never exactly had a lot of friends, but I left them – and you – too . My home. My books. My cat, even. I'm not saying I regret being here, or that I resent having to leave all that, but...bits and pieces, you know?"

Doppler nodded slowly. "It has been quite a journey for you."

"I'm just sorry I made you think I was dead." Milo looked up apologetically. "I guess I did kind of up and vanish on you all. I hope that didn't cause too much trouble."

"Well, the School of Archaeology and Anthropology was a little short-staffed for a while," said Doppler. "They ended up replacing you with someone from Pelsinor Academy about six months after you left."

"Oh, yeah?" Milo raised an eyebrow. "Any good?"

"I'm probably not the best person to ask," said Doppler. "Though I understand they had a glowing reference from their department head."

"The kind of glowing reference a person gets because they earned it?" asked Milo. "Or the kind they get because they're useless and their boss just wants to be rid of them?"

Doppler laughed. "You do get a bit of both, don't you? But I'm afraid I really don't know. You were the only person I knew in A and A. My own colleagues from Astronomy and Astrophysics always thought I was a bit odd for associating with you. A lot of them never really considered anthropology to be a... _proper_ science."

"I understand." Milo grinned. "Wasn't it one of your esteemed colleagues who once said that 'all science is either physics or stamp collecting'?"

Doppler laughed. "Ah, old Baron Rutherford. Yes, I'm afraid he was one of ours."

"Though I have to say," said Milo. "I'm interested that you called the School of Archaeology and Anthropology 'A and A' just now."

"Why? Didn't everyone do that?"

"Well, we always used 'A and A' to refer to _your_ department – Astronomy and Astrophysics."

"Oh." Doppler blinked as if he'd never thought of that before. "Well...I suppose that might explain why so many memos went missing in the internal mail..."

Milo laughed. "Now that you mention it – wait, what's that?"

Doppler cocked an ear. "Yes, I hear it too. Is it coming from outside?"

Milo scrambled to his feet and moved to the breach again. "Have a look and see."

Doppler stood reluctantly and peered out through the hole, keeping both hands on the most solid-looking piece of masonry he could find. Below, but climbing quickly, were two of the fish-like Atlantean flying machines he had seen, their strange, harmonic hum announcing their approach. He recognised the shape of Kida on one, but was shocked to belatedly recognise Amelia riding the other.

"Well," said Milo. "I guess that beats walking..."

The flying machines arrived at the breach and parked themselves wingtip-to-wingtip in the air. Kida stood up and waved to Milo.

"You called us?"

"Er, yes. We just didn't expect to see you so soon." Milo stood back to give her room to climb through the breach. "We found the Chamber of All Things. But we thought you should see it. And I think we need you, too."

"Why is that?" Amelia followed her, stepping gracefully from her flying machine apparently oblivious to the great drop below her.

"We think we need a royal crystal to activate it," said Milo. "And only Kida holds one of those."

"So it's just here?" Kida surveyed the arched doorway with fascination.

"Yep. That's it." Milo jumped down from the rubble to join her looking at it.

"So after all that climbing, you could have just flown here?" Amelia grinned at Doppler as he remembered himself and chivalrously began trying to help her down.

"Yes, well." Milo coughed to hide his embarrassment. "We only had the Journal to guide us and the author obviously got here by the stairs. And besides, you wouldn't be able to fly up here at all if that external wall hadn't caved in just outside. There was no way of knowing that until we got here."

"Do not worry," Kida poked him in the ribs. "It would have been good exercise for you."

"Very funny." Milo grinned. "But anyway, none of this is showing you why we called for you."

Amelia waved. "Lead on."

* * *

Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness of the chamber. Amelia looked around as they crossed the floor, following the path lit by Doppler's lantern, her keen eyes picking details out of the darkness. The chamber was mostly spherical, perhaps forty metres across and probably slightly more than that high, with smooth, curving stone walls lined with what she now recognised as Atlantean carvings. The floor was also marked with carven channels, and here and there lay strange objects, small and metallic – a silver sphere, a bronze diamond. Doppler and Milo led the way to a flight of shallow stairs that rose from the floor, hugging the wall to a height of about ten metres where they plateaued out into a balcony. A stone plinth rose from the middle of it.

"We think we've figured out how this place works," said Milo. "But I think we need Kida's help. Here."

He reached the plinth and pointed to a socket in the middle of it. Kida leaned over and examined it.

"It's like the ones on the flying machines," she said.

Milo nodded. "Right. But I think this one's special. My crystal couldn't activate it. But I think yours can. This inscription here says that it's for the eyes of the king – but I'm betting that a queen will do. And your crystal...well, it's the one your father used to wear, after all."

"It is the crown crystal." Kida unclasped her necklace and fingered the pendant for a moment. "Handed down from one ruler to the next for generations."

Milo nodded and smiled encouragingly at her. "Well...shall we see what it can do?"

"Most definitely." Kida aligned it with the socket and slid it into place. She turned it halfway to the right and heard an answering click from some mechanism inside the plinth. For a moment, nothing happened. Blue-green light flickered across the floor and walls as if a current of energy was passing through it, but faded just as quickly as it had come.

"Is that all?" Amelia frowned.

Doppler looked up. "No. No, it's not."

A glow was slowly suffusing the air, gradually illuminating the whole chamber. The blue-green illumination flickered again and steadied. Water, coming from some unseen sources, began flowing into the lit channels in the floor like liquid light. Green sparks glimmered in mid-air, and more began flowing from the carvings in the walls.

"My goodness," Amelia murmured. "It's just like-"

"Just like the Treasure Planet map sphere being opened," said Doppler. "Intelligent pixels."

"Like in my compass." Milo agreed.

"It is beautiful," Kida watched as the pixels swam together, filling the chamber with a thousand small eddies of light. They coalesced, burst, span and reordered themselves into constellations and spheres. The metallic tokens scattered across the floor rose up and began threading their ways through the swarming pixels. The whole, vast display stabilised before them, glowing like a cloud of green fireflies. On the plinth, Kida's crystal shone as a brilliant light was suddenly projecting through it, refracting through its facets and sending a beam of radiance lancing through the display until it terminated at a spot in the centre, leaving behind a single point of incandescence.

"Just as I thought..." Doppler breathed.

"It's very pretty. But would either of you care to explain just what this is?" Amelia raised an eyebrow.

"It's the Atlantean Empire," said Milo. "Or at least, as it used to be, nearly nine thousand years ago. That star there, the one projected through Kida's crystal? That's Atlantis."

"And the rest?"

"Other stars. Other planets. Celestial phenomena of every kind." Doppler began pointing to some as he named them. "There's the Cygnus Cross. The Maws of Cerberus. The Grail Nebula. Van Ryen's Point."

"What about the objects?" Kida watched a small silver sphere as it orbited a star a few feet above her.

"Well," Milo opened the Shepherd's Journal. "I _think_ they're Atlantean outposts. Or ships. Or colonies. Portals. That kind of thing. I don't know what each one signifies yet."

"There must be _hundreds_ of them," breathed Amelia.

"We were a great empire once," said Kida.

"Yes, but what I mean is...how much of it's still out there waiting to be rediscovered?"

"I'm afraid there's no telling," said Doppler. "But as fascinating as that is...here's the real trick. Look at the plinth, Amelia. Does anything seem familiar?"

Amelia turned to look. Distracted by the grand display, she had failed to notice that the plinth itself had sprouted projections – a hovering cloud of runes and symbols.

"It looks like the controls from the Atlantean ship we found," she said. "Or the portal controls from Treasure Planet – or the Gate Engine, as I suppose we should call it."

"Precisely," said Doppler. "I was wondering how to move Atlantis. I think this is how. It's more than just a map. It's a navigational system."

"So all you need to do is touch the Sapphire Deep icons, just like how Treasure Planet would open a portal at whatever location you touched on its controls?" Amelia raised an eyebrow. "That seems...anti-climactically simple."

"Yes, well, that's because it is." Doppler waved a hand at the display. "The universe is in constant motion, which means that this map is out of date. The best part of nine thousand of years out of date. Stars, even whole constellations, have been born, shifted and dispersed since it was made. If we just select a destination using it now...who knows what could happen. Would it move us to that place, or to where that place was eight thousand eight hundred years ago? We don't know."

"So what's the answer?"

Doppler shrugged. "I'm afraid the only option I see is to update the map."

"Can you do that?" asked Milo. "That sounds like a lot of data."

Doppler sighed. "Well...if we can limit the update to just the parts of the map which concern us, it'll make it easier. But still, it's a lot of work. I'll need Aurora's help full-time on the astrometry, and access to the navigational computers on the _Providence_."

"They're both all yours," Amelia shrugged. "The ship hardly needs a navigator whilst it's anchored to the terrace outside, and Mr Constantine can replace her in the watch cycle easily enough."

"How long will it all take?" asked Kida.

"I'm sorry, your majesty," Doppler shook his head apologetically. "I really can't say. It could be a couple of weeks."

"Well." Amelia put her hand on his shoulder. "There's not a moment to lose, then. Can we give you a lift back down?"

"I, er," Doppler looked nervous. "I'm not sure-"

"It's perfectly safe," said Amelia. "Just like riding a solar surfer."

"I thought you hadn't done that since the Academy?"

"One never forgets." Amelia grinned. "Just remember to hang on tight."

"Good advice," said Kida. She gave Milo a similar grin. "Which you should take as well, if you're planning on coming with us."

"You're not planning a race, are you?" Milo gave her a nervous smile.

Kida traded glances with Amelia. "Well...now that you mention it..."

Amelia winked. "I'm ready if you are, your majesty."

Milo sighed. "Me and my big mouth..."

* * *

Dr Gray picked her way through the market, taking in the sights and sounds. The market was a cul-de-sac apparently formed by the collapse of a tower parallel to a natural outcrop of grey stone, and there were already several groups of spacers exploring it. Some of them noticed Gray's approach and saluted, though the older ones simply stood aside to let her pass. The stalls had been set up under woven blue canopies suspended between wooden or brass poles and Atlantean vendors stood or sat behind their wares. There had at least been no language barriers thanks to the mutual compatibility of Atlantean and its descendant tongues, but it had taken some time to improvise a barter system. And for the mute surgeon, the common elements of the spoken languages were no help at all. According to Milo, the Atlanteans were illiterate even in their own language and so she found herself with no means at all of communicating. It was a worrying thought that reminded her too much of her early days coming to terms with her muteness, but she had steeled herself for the experience anyway. She stopped at what appeared to be a jeweller's stall and looked down at the items on display.

"Would you like to buy?" The owner, a rotund, tattooed Atlantean stood up and held out a pendant. It was oval-shaped and appeared to have been modelled after the shell of a turtle. There were small gemstones embedded around its edge. Gray adjusted her spectacles and examined it critically. There was no doubt that it was a fine piece of work, and part of her couldn't help noticing that the tiny gems were a similar shade of pale blue to Ko's eyes, but she couldn't remember any occasion on which Ko had ever worn jewellery and decided not to risk it. She shook her head.

"Something else? Necklace? Bracelet?" The Atlantean bent down and began picking up other items. Gray shook her head again, more firmly.

"What sort of thing are you looking for?"

Gray looked down at the items for sale, wishing that she could reply. The stallholder didn't seem to notice.

"Hey, I said, what sort of thing are you looking for? Do you even know?"

Gray felt her heart rate increasing dramatically. The feeling of being unable to communicate was bringing back unpleasant memories for her. In desperation, her eyes alighted on a collection of small bronze bowls on a stand in the stall. She waved at them and the stallholder smiled.

"Captain? Captain Gray?"

Gray turned around at the sound of her name and saw Lieutenant Mayflower approaching her. Gray counted very few people as friends and the Admiral's aide wasn't one of them, but she appreciated the familiarity of her face. She nodded to her and produced her notebook.

HELLO.

Aurora looked at the stallholder's wares. "Do you mind if I join you, ma'am? I haven't got a keepsake yet either."

I'M NOT BUYING FOR MYSELF, Gray wrote.

"Oh? Who for, then, ma'am? If I can ask.'

FOR – Gray stopped and reconsidered her next word. HOME.

If Aurora knew that wasn't strictly true, she gave no sign of it as she leaned over and examined the bowl that the Atlantean was proffering. It was covered with intricate, geometric carvings and sigils.

"That's rather nice. What will you take for it?"

The jeweller shrugged and looked thoughtful. "I could trade for your...scroll?"

"Scroll?" Aurora frowned and looked confused. "I'm sorry, I don't-"

Gray held up her notebook. The Atlantean nodded.

"Ah." Of course, Aurora thought. It's unlikely that the Atlanteans would have a word for 'notebook'...

Gray handed it over, along with her pen. The jeweller smiled thanks and handed over the bowl, which Gray slipped into one of the waist pockets of her uniform white coat. She and Aurora nodded their thanks and stepped away.

"I hope that's not going to inconvenience you, ma'am," said Aurora.

Gray shook her head and produced a second notebook and pen. I ALWAYS CARRY SPARES.

"Of course." Aurora smiled. "I should have known."

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.

"It was nothing, ma'am. Glad to be of service."

DID THE ADMIRAL SEND YOU?

Aurora looked puzzled for a moment and then shook her head as she understood. "No, ma'am. Nothing like that, I assure you."

SHE HAS A TENDENCY TO, Gray sought for words. TAKE AN INTEREST.

"She does," Aurora agreed. "But if I may, ma'am, the reason I called for you is over here..."

Gray followed her to a stall on the other side of the market. It was a small, neat affair with stone bowls of what she saw to be herbs and various other vegetable matter set out around a middle-aged Atlantean whose face was almost completely covered in blue tattoos.

"It's an apothecary," said Aurora. "Well, I think. They don't seem to have the word 'apothecary' but 'healer' seemed to work. I thought, maybe, some of this might be useful to you."

Gray nodded and bent over the plants. Aurora looked up and smiled at the stallholder.

"Sorry about that. This is our, er, healer."

"I am pleased to meet you," said the apothecary, with a small bow. "It is always an honour to meet a fellow disciple of life."

Gray blinked at the unusual description but returned a gesture of greeting before she lowered her head again to study the herbs on display. Aurora caught the look of interest on her face and leaned down to watch as she fingered a pot of dried green leaves.

"Ma'am?"

Gray reached for her notebook again. IF WE WEREN'T IN AN ENTIRELY ALIEN PLACE, I'D SAY THIS WAS NAVITAS SPENCERIN.

"Turkleweed?" Aurora blinked in surprise at the mention of the herbal stimulant and looked up at the apothecary.

"I do not know that word," he said.

Gray had already moved on. THIS LOOKS LIKE ECHINACEA PURPUREA. AND PAPAVA SOMNIFERUM.

"What?"

ANAESTHETICS, Gray explained. She looked up at the perplexed Atlantean, who shrugged.

"Er..."

"She recognises your herbs, sir," said Aurora. "They're used throughout the Empire."

"We have used them for thousands of years," said the apothecary. "I do not know the words you use for them, but they are well-known to us. They have been used alongside the power of the crystals for generations."

Gray looked intrigued. THE POWER OF THE CRYSTALS?

"She's asking how you use the crystals," Aurora translated.

"Ah." The apothecary took his pendant off over his head. "The crystals contain a trace of the life energy of the Heart. As the Heart preserves life, so too can it restore it. May I see your arm?"

Aurora looked down at her left arm, where a fringe of bandage still protruded from her sleeve. "My arm? Well...if you like..."

She took off her blue coat and rolled up the sleeve of her white cotton shirt, exposing the bandaging around her forearm. As Gray watched with eagle eyes, the Atlantean gently and deftly undid the wrapping. Aurora's forearm was where her mustard fur transitioned into white, but at the junction of the two colours there was an unsightly mass of fresh scar tissue from one side of her arm to the other, following the course of the splinter that had impaled her during the Ironclad War's climactic battle. Though many weeks ago, the wound had not quite healed yet.

"Hold still, please." The apothecary held her arm in one hand while his other reached out with his crystal pendant. Gray stepped forward sharply as it began to shine, a soft, blue light suffusing the wound in the young felinid's arm. The light flowed through the damaged tissue, making it glow as if from within. Aurora watched, too amazed to even register what it felt like. The apothecary pressed his hand down over the radiance, as if sculpting the light and fusing it into her flesh. The blue glow shone between his fingers for a moment, and then faded as he withdrew his hand. Aurora stared at her arm, which was again covered in nothing but smooth fur as if the wound had never been there.

"Now, try." The apothecary smiled.

Aurora flexed her arm, testing what had once been damaged muscles. "It's...all better. There's not even a scar. That's incredible. How does it work?"

CELLULAR GROWTH STIMULATION WOULD BE MY GUESS, Gray wrote. She seized Aurora's arm and examined it up close for any sign of an after-effect.

"Remarkable." Aurora shook her head. "But-"

She turned at the sound of running footsteps behind them and saw the crowds part to allow the passage of Midshipman Collis.

"Ma'am," he panted to regain his breath. "And ma'am. I'm...sorry for...the interruption..."

"Not necessary, Mr Collis." Aurora nodded in return to his salute. "What's your business?"

"Message for you, ma'am. Compliments from Admiral Amelia, but you're wanted back at the ship," said Collis. "Urgently. Doctor Doppler will meet you there."

"Very good, Mr Collis. I'll be there directly." Aurora turned to Gray and shrugged. "I'm sorry. But it must be something important."

Gray nodded. I'LL STAY HERE A WHILE.

"If you're sure, ma'am."

Gray nodded again. ATLANTEAN MEDICINE IS CLEARLY WORTH FURTHER STUDY.

Aurora smiled and flexed her arm. "It certainly appears so. Good luck, ma'am."

AND TO YOU. Gray turned back to the apothecary, an enquiring glint in her eyes.

* * *

At night the radiance of the Heart dimmed to that of a full moon, casting a pale light over the city that turned it into a patchwork of silver and shadow. Milo lay in bed and stared out of the window at the starry sky. There was a shifting next to him as Kida propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him with concern.

"Milo? Are you all right?"

"Hm?" Milo blinked himself out of his reverie and looked around at her. "Oh, yeah. Just getting used to this bed again. I guess I've got used to shipboard bunks since I've been away."

"I hope your journey was not too hard?" Kida adjusted his pillow for him.

"Oh, no. It was fine. I mean, the gold you gave me meant that I didn't have to stow away or anything." Milo smiled. "And the journey back aboard the _Providence_ was actually quite comfortable. It's just...when you're away for so long you get used to different things."

"I wouldn't know." Kida smiled back. "I have never been away before."

"Of course." Milo took her hand encouragingly. "Well, maybe once this is all over, you'll have a chance. Even queens need a vacation sometimes. And goodness knows you've earned it."

"And I would so dearly love to see the galaxy," Kida's smile grew sad. "I only hope I get the chance."

"You will," Milo reassured her. "We'll get through this. Once the Heart has been restored, everything will be all right. You'll see."

"Your friends seemed confident that they knew what to do," said Kida. "I just wish that I could be sure. There is so much depending on this."

"Delbert's the best in his business," said Milo. "If he says it can be done, I trust him."

"As do I," Kida nodded. "But I feel...useless. I mean, I am the queen. And all I can do is stand by like a child and wait while other people do all of the work."

"I know the feeling." Milo sighed. "It's out of my league, too. But there are still things we can do. We can show Audrey to that old ship that we found. I'm sure there'll be more questions about the Chamber and the Heart. And most importantly, your people will be looking to you for confidence. That's not nothing."

"You are right, of course." Kida gave him a small smile. "I am not sure that the people know how serious the situation is. Perhaps, under the circumstances, that is for the best. After all, if it does not work-"

"Stop right there," Milo touched her cheek. "One bridge at a time, right? We've got enough to do to make it work to worry about what to do if it doesn't, okay?"

"You are right again." Kida settled down next to him, her arm across his chest. "One must not sleep in the shadows."

"'Sleep in the shadows'?" Milo blinked. "I don't think I've heard you say that before."

"Oh" She scrunched her face, trying to figure out the best was to explain. "It is like 'to wallow in sadness when there is good around you.' Instead of playing in the light of the Heart, you sleep away in the darkness it does not reach."

Milo laughed. "You know, you still manage to have surprises for me."

"And one must count one's blessings in the meantime." Kida smiled. "I am so glad to have you back."

"And I'm glad to _be_ back." Milo kissed her and enjoyed the softness of her eyes. "The hardest part of being away wasn't the bunks. It was missing you."

"I missed you, too." Kida kissed him back.

Milo smiled and held her close. "So. We've already made progress, then."

Kida chuckled. "I suppose we have."

Milo drew the blanket up over themselves and tried to force himself to relax. His eyes closed, but only for a couple of minutes. Then he opened them again and looked pensively back up at the stars.

* * *

It was the next day. Audrey was methodically hacking her way through dense foliage, a cutlass in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. The sketch map Milo had hastily drawn for her had led her on a circuitous route around the main landmass of Atlantis because what had looked like a distance of a mile or two on the map had turned into a far more formidable trek once the terrain was taken into account. Though a lot of it was flat, it had proven mostly perpendicular, forcing long detours to avoid the more dizzying drops. She was aware of heading gradually downwards and the palace tower now loomed overhead, casting a long, cool shadow over what she could see was a valley. Even so, the air was humid and thick and she paused to wipe a forearm across her brow.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" she called over her shoulder.

"Yes," Milo was about twenty paces behind, struggling with a creeper that had drooped across the path. "I mean, you know. Mostly."

"We are sure," said Kida, stepping forward and raising the creeper with the hooked blade of her spear. "I came back down this way myself only a week or so ago."

"And you're sure it's a ship?"

"Well, we can't think what else it could be," said Milo. "We just don't know what it's for."

"What's it doing all the way down here, though?" Audrey pushed aside a bush. "I would have thought it would be...well, somewhere else. Not in the middle of a jungle."

"I don't think it used to be a jungle," said Milo, patting his satchel. "The Shepherd's Journal talks about the 'great sky port of Atlantis' as being in a kind of valley. The ships would pull in to piers carved from the rock itself."

Audrey looked up at the towering cliffs on either side of them. In her mind's eye, she peeled back the layers of greenery and pictured a busy spaceport, ships coming and going, joining the world of Atlantis to its empire in the galaxy beyond. She was a practical-minded person not given to flights of fancy, but something about the image struck her – a sense that it was more than just a fantasy but something that had actually happened – and she paused for a moment to let it sink in.

"Yeah," she said. "I can see that."

"It's the only ship we've found," said Milo. "Even though the port was probably busy. I guess there was just enough time for a lot of them to get away before-"

"Before the _mabelmok_ ," Kida finished. "Yes."

"But this one stayed for some reason," Milo went on. "Then, I guess the stone of the pier gave way eventually and the whole thing just fell into the valley. It's probably some kind of miracle that it survived. Or perhaps I should say that it's _intact._ We don't know if it still works."

"Atlanteans build things to last," said Audrey, stopping to let the other two catch up. "And if it's still in one piece after nine thousand years, that's got to be a good sign."

"So we are hoping." Kida passed her and looked down. The path went off an edge here and descended steeply to the valley floor. "And there it is."

Audrey stepped up next to her and craned her neck to see. Below them, a narrow river trickled through the valley, stopping to diverge into two smaller streams where it met a large, elongated shape. Had Audrey given it only a passing glance, she would have assumed it to be a natural island, for its form was rounded and organic despite its length being comparable to that of the _Providence._ Despite it being covered in millennia of plant growth, she could tell that the underlying shape was conical. A number of Atlanteans were labouring on it, hacking away the vegetation with their curled blades to reveal a flank that appeared to be made of a burnished, coppery metal.

"Wow," she said. "So this is what your ships looked like, Kida?"

Kida nodded. "Yes. We did not have your solar sails. Our ships used the energies of the stars themselves to move."

Audrey shook her head. "I can't even begin to imagine that kind of technology. But I'll see what I can do."

"Any clues would be invaluable," said Milo. "Obviously there are no living Atlanteans who know how their ships worked. And the Shepherd's Journal doesn't say anything either, aside from telling us that the ships existed. I guess the author had other things on their mind."

"I can understand why." Audrey peered down the slope and sheathed her cutlass. "So...we just go down here?"

"Yes," said Kida. "But carefully. You would not want to break anything."

"Right." Milo checked the clasps on his satchel. "Here goes nothing..."

Audrey was already partway down the slope, sliding her way down the bare earth or jumping from one rock to another. Milo was gingerly lowering himself down after her when Kida darted past him, apparently quite unencumbered by her spear.

"Keep up, Milo!" she called over her shoulder.

"You know we can't all do that!" Milo adjusted his glasses and looked for the next foothold. "Much as I'd like to..."

He followed them to the valley floor as quickly as he dared, landing slightly out of breath before jogging to catch up with Kida. She and Audrey were halfway along the short path to the ship before he got there, the workers who had been industriously clearing away the vegetation stopping and bowing as they caught sight of Kida, who smiled and waved them back to their tasks. The ship was a curving wall of dark bronze ahead of them, a hatchway in the side open and black. Audrey produced an electric lantern from her bag and switched it on.

"I assume you've already been in here?" she asked.

Kida nodded. "But there are no lights."

"Good thing I brought this, then." Audrey inched forward. Even for someone of her small stature, she had to duck her head to enter the hatchway. Kida set her spear aside and followed, as did Milo, bent almost double and fumbling to light his own lantern. They followed the entry passage a short distance into the ship until it joined what was clearly a main corridor stretching fore-to-aft along the vessel's length. It was more than high enough for even Milo to stand up straight. The walls were curved and lined with a series of pipes and conduits that Audrey was immediately examining in the yellow light of her lantern. But even she could do no more than guess at the purpose of the array, which looped and curled back on itself illogically and organically even as it propagated along the corridor and into darkness on either side.

"Well," said Audrey. "I'm following you."

"We think we've found the bridge of the ship," Milo pointed the beam of his light down the corridor. "It's this way. We'll pass through what might be an engine room as well."

"My two favourite things," Audrey grinned. "Let's not hang around, then."

Their footfalls rang metallic on the grating that formed the floor. Kida led them down a side passage even deeper into the ship and then turned towards the bows again. A doorway loomed out of the darkness in front of them and they stepped through it. Immediately, the sound of their footsteps changed such that Audrey knew they were in a much larger chamber. She panned her lantern around and whistled in awe. The chamber was spherical and probably about as wide as the ship's beam at that point. They were proceeding across it on a raised walkway that led to a platform at the exact centre. The walls were covered with tall, cylindrical crystals that gleamed gold in the lantern-light.

"So this is your engine room?"

"So we think." Milo looked around and shrugged. "But your guess is about as good as ours. It's not like any ship I've ever heard of."

"It's not." Audrey shook her head. "If this is an engine...there's not a species in the galaxy that uses anything like this. Not even the dark matter drives the Procs invented for their ironclads."

"We're not even sure what it runs on," said Milo.

"I would hesitate to guess," said Audrey. "But I think Dr Doppler and the Admiral might have some idea. They found a ship like this once."

"Ah, so they said," Kida brightened up. "Perhaps they can tell us about it?"

"I suspect that Delbert'll be a little busy for a while with those calculations," said Milo. "But Amelia might be willing to help."

They stepped around the edge of the platform in the centre of the room, in the centre of which rose a low black cylinder that Audrey assumed to be some sort of control panel, and continued into the depths of the ship. A hundred yards past the crystal chamber they emerged into a semi-circular room. An array of the squat black cylinders rose from the floor and Audrey could see the central one bore an ornate array of Atlantean sigils and had the telltale hexagonal hole of a crystal port.

"Looks like a bridge to me," she said. "Complete with ignition. I suppose you've already tried a crystal in this thing?"

Kida nodded. "Yes, but to no effect. Even mine does nothing."

"We think it's something to do with the Heart," said Milo. "Perhaps its energy doesn't reach down here. There's no line of sight to it."

Audrey nodded. "Could be. There might need to be some kind of residual charge. Or perhaps a capacitor that the crystals activate. It would take a heck of a lot more to get this ship into the skies than one of those little flying-fish machines."

"Is there anything you can do?" asked Kida.

Audrey shrugged and looked around. "I can come up with a hundred and one ideas if you want me to. I mean, even the most complex machine can fail if it has a loose wire or something. I can bring some gear from the ship and some of the other engineers might want to help have a look around, but if the Heart's got something to do with it, we may not even know if we're right."

Milo sighed. "That's what I was worried about. Well...then I guess there's nothing to do but wait. And hope."

* * *

 _The Sapphire Deeps still glowed in the distance. They were closer to the iron ship than before, though still far beyond its reach. The smoke issuing from its funnels was thinning and changing colour from coal-black to a dirty brown. Its exhausts were changing colour too, cooling from a blue heat to a sooty red before flickering out altogether. The Dreadnought drifted, carried forward on nothing but its own inertia towards the sapphire stars ahead._

 _Any other crew might have been disappointed or frustrated. But the Dreadnought's crew felt nothing. They couldn't. Mechanical brains blinked out, reset, and began patiently waiting for their ship's life to return._

 _After all, it was only a matter of time._


	6. Chapter 6

Amelia made her way up the gangway to the _Providence,_ returning the salutes from the first watch. It was late at night and the ship lay under the fiery golden glow of its deck lanterns. Midshipman Collis looked up from inspecting the mainmast shrouds and snapped to attention.

"Good evening, ma'am. Welcome back."

"Thank you, Mr Collis." Amelia took off her hat. "Anything to report?"

"Not a thing, ma'am. It's been a quiet night."

"Very good." Amelia looked aft to where she could see the lights on in her stateroom. "Have you heard anything from Dr Doppler or Lieutenant Mayflower?"

"No, ma'am. They've been working in there for hours."

Amelia nodded and made her way across the quarterdeck, opening the door and stepping inside. The stateroom was brightly lit and the small conference table was covered in charts and scraps of paper. Amelia smiled fondly as she saw Doppler and Aurora both asleep in their chairs. Notepads lay open in front of both of them alongside mugs of congealing cocoa. Closing the door quietly behind her, she shrugged off her uniform coat and draped it gently around Aurora, who shifted and mumbled something before settling back to sleep, her head pillowed on a stack of books.

"Delbert?" Amelia turned and touched Doppler lightly on the shoulder. His nose and ear twitched once or twice as he woke up slowly.

"Wh...whassmatter...who..."

Amelia grinned at him, indicating Aurora across the table and gesturing to keep his voice low. "Hello, dear. Working hard?"

"Oh. Well, yes." Doppler sat up and peered blearily around the table. "Lots of...lots of work. To update the map in the chamber."

"Progressing well, I hope?" Amelia picked up a piece of paper and found it covered in closely-written calculations. At a glance, she knew not to bother trying to interpret it – it was the kind of mathematics that had already gone beyond the mere numbers of arithmetic and even the abstraction of algebra and was in the peculiar realm in which equations were formed of symbols that seemed to be made up as they went along.

"You two have been beavering away at it for a week already," she finished, putting the paper down again.

"Oh, recalculating the positions isn't so hard," said Doppler, stifling a yawn. "The ship's charts have given us an enormous head start. And for anything the charts don't show, we can work it out the old-fashioned way. Celestial mechanics are pretty straightforward in principle – you just have to be absolutely certain you're accounting for every single factor."

"It certainly looks like you've been doing that." Amelia looked at the piles of papers, charts and books.

"Well, Aurora's been doing most of it." Doppler stood unsteadily and waved across the table to where the navigator slept, her mane of blonde hair falling around her head. "As I say, it's not difficult. Just meticulous. She can handle it. In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out how this is supposed to work. Moving Atlantis, I mean."

"I was wondering whether I should ask about that," said Amelia, as they left the conference room and stepped into her private quarters. "Aside from anything else, if anything were to go wrong, it would be nice to know what might have caused it."

"Well, I'm not sure I can shed that much light. There's an old saying that any sufficiently-advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic," said Doppler. "The Atlanteans passed that point some time ago. What they did is as incomprehensible to us now as our own technology – robots, energy weapons, solar sails – would have been to our ancestors when they still lived in caves."

"Are you comparing yourself to a wizard, Delbert?" Amelia smiled fondly.

"No, no!" The astrophysicist shook his head. "No, but the people who built Atlantis might as well have been. I mean, moving an entire city from point to point in space? I wouldn't believe it if I didn't know it was true."

"Have you any idea how it can be done?"

"None I can prove." Doppler sighed. "I expect it's using similar technology to the portal engine on Treasure Planet, which we now know the Atlanteans built as well. As for how _that_ worked...well, the best hypothesis I've come up with is that it's an exploitation of macro-scaled quantum entanglement."

"In Standard, please, dear?"

"It's only a theory," said Doppler. "But...put simply...it says that particles can be connected in a very fundamental way across enormous gulfs of space. So if you took two entangled particles and did something to change one of them, it would change the other one as well."

"I'm with you so far," said Amelia.

"Yes, but here's the thing," Doppler paused as if for dramatic effect. "It changes the other one _instantly_. Not 'quickly' or 'rapidly' but _instantly_. That's why it's one of the major problems in contemporary physics."

"Why is it a problem?" Amelia raised an eyebrow. "It sounds straightforward enough to me."

"It's a problem because it's impossible," said Doppler simply. "Because physics also tells us that nothing – nothing – can travel faster than light. And yet...quantum entanglement manages to transmit effects instantaneously. It doesn't matter if the two particles are next to each other or on opposite sides of the galaxy."

"Ah." Amelia smiled. "I do believe I'm coming to understand your difficulty."

Doppler nodded. "I _think_ that Atlantis uses some kind of similar effect. Except, of course, on a massive, massive scale. Not just with two particles, but with entire locations in time and space. And instead of sending information, it sends matter. After all, there's a theory which holds that matter is transformed into information when it passes through a black hole's singularity. Perhaps Atlantis harnesses that effect in a controlled manner and sends it to the place where it wants to appear."

"Do you know how it could?"

"I have an idea." Doppler pulled his notes towards himself. "But it requires the sort of thinking that would have got me laughed out as an undergraduate. It's all to do with dimensional planes. Use enough of them and suddenly quantum entanglement isn't as impossible as it seems. It _is_ possible to move across a vast distance without leaving a trace."

"But only if you move through those other dimensions?"

"Precisely." Doppler fished a crumpled notepad out of his pocket, turned to a blank page and drew two dots on it. "Imagine this page represents normal spacetime. This dot is where Atlantis is now, in the Timaeus Cluster. And the other dot is where we want it to be, down in the Sapphire Deeps. How far across the surface of the page does your pencil have to travel to get from one dot to the other? How long a line would it draw?"

Amelia cocked an eyebrow. "About six centimetres, I'd say."

Doppler put his pencil on the first dot. And then lifted it off the page and put it down on the second. "Or...zero. All you have to do is add another dimension to the puzzle. The addition of the extra dimension removes the need to travel across the surface of the page altogether. And if you assume that time is one of your basic starting dimensions, then you can see how something that doesn't pass through those dimensions might _appear_ to be totally instantaneous."

Amelia smiled. "Do you know, that actually makes a certain amount of sense."

"I'm glad to hear it." Doppler smiled back, and then sighed. "Of course, in this case we're talking about more like _three_ extra dimensions and a process that has to turn a fourth one inside out and upside down. And it's a city rather than a pencil. But I suppose the analogy stands up in other ways."

"Have you tested any of this?"

"I tried to use the ship's navigational computer." Doppler looked embarrassed. "But I think I broke it. It wasn't exactly designed for this kind of calculation. One of the engineers had to come and do something to it."

Amelia chuckled. "Only you, my love, could out-compute a computer."

"It's wasn't its fault." Doppler waved his hand. "We're dealing with transdimensional abstractions here. This sort of thing is past the edge of known physics. Even the most basic elements are only just starting to be talked about in the theoretical literature."

"There's still nobody else I'd rather trust with this." Amelia bent down to kiss him. Doppler returned the kiss and smiled.

"I'll just have to keep working on it, I suppose. And how about you? You were at some kind of a concert?"

"Yes, Kida arranged a recital. I have to admit that Atlantean music is not necessarily entirely to my tastes, but it was a kind gesture. I'm only sorry you couldn't be there."

"That's all right." Doppler shrugged. "This needs to be done. And the sooner the better."

Amelia nodded. "I suppose there's no place closer than the Sapphire Deeps? Somewhere that might be easier to reach?"

Doppler shook his head. "No. No, I spoke with Milo very carefully about that. It has to be a very particular kind of blue dwarf to recharge the Heart. Don't ask me why, but it's the only kind of star they've used in the past."

"I take it there's something special about those stars, then?"

"It's the energy they generate," said Doppler. "Most stars are fuelled by hydrogen fusion. But the Sapphires have dark matter cores, so they produce a very special kind of energy signature. Perhaps that's how the Heart itself was originally formed – as the core of a dark matter star."

"Another question I'm afraid I'll have to leave to you." Amelia patted his shoulder. "In the meantime...shouldn't you be sleeping somewhere a little more comfortable than this?"

* * *

For the next several days, Amelia saw almost nothing of either her husband or her flag-lieutenant. Even on the rare occasions they descended from the Chamber of All Things, their minds remained in some abstract world of mathematics and every time there was a lull in conversation she could see their eyes looking into the middle distance as if picturing some theoretical conjunction. She knew better than to break such concentration and, aside from ensuring that they had adequate sleep and sustenance, she kept her distance and diplomatically advised Milo and Kida to do likewise. But eventually, word arrived that the day they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

Footsteps echoing up the stairwell, Milo, Kida and Amelia climbed up towards the Chamber of All Things. The two women were naturally setting the pace and showed no signs of fatigue even as they approached the collapsed section of wall.

"Now I see why we just flew up here the last time," Kida remarked.

Amelia grinned. "It did save some time. But I think you were right to veto it today."

Kida looked up. "Sadly so. It is not a good day for flying."

The rain must have been pooling in some holed and forgotten cistern or gutter somewhere above, for a continuous waterfall now poured from a corner of the broken ceiling, splashing noisily into a puddle on the floor before draining out through the breach and joining the countless other small rivulets and trickles that made their way down the immense mountain of stonework.

"Looks like we picked a good day to stop being here," said Milo, catching up. "Er...assuming that we will, that is."

"I understand that's the plan," said Amelia. "Delbert told me that they'd be ready today. I've already issued orders to my crew to be ready."

"Ready for what?"

"Anything."

"I have instructed my ministers to be ready also," said Kida. "Though I wish I could have told them exactly what for. And I have grounded all our flying machines, just in case."

They negotiated the pile of rubble from the fallen ceiling and approached the archway where the carved stone door stood open. From inside came the glow of the great map, which was hovering in mid-air, every pixel shining brightly as it orbited the blue star that signified Atlantis itself. The figures of Doppler and Aurora could be seen on the viewing platform, bent over a pile of papers. As they watched, Aurora straightened up and moved over to the map, where she raised her hands to cup the mote of a star and shift it a couple of feet to the right.

"Hello?" Kida raised a hand.

Doppler looked up suddenly, as if jerked out of a reverie, and shook himself. "Oh! Oh, yes. Yes, hello."

"I trust all is in order?" Amelia glanced at the map as they made their way to the platform. "It looks rather different from how I recall it."

"Yes, well. So it should." Doppler smiled. "Nine thousand years different, I hope."

"I'm afraid I'll have to take your word on that," Amelia joined him. "And yours, lieutenant."

"Hello, ma'am," Aurora stepped back from the map. "Well, it's not a complete update, of course. Only the parts we need. But...yes, I think we're finally done."

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I think that's what we need Milo and Kida for." Doppler turned to them. "Since it's Kida's crystal that activates the map...we thought it would probably be Kida who has to use it."

"It's true," said Milo. "The Shepherd's Journal makes it clear that this was a place for royalty. And that inscription on the plinth there says-"

"'The hand of the King shall show the way,'" read Kida, examining it.

"That's right." Milo couldn't help a small smile at that. "Or...the hand of the Queen, as it now is."

"You really think I can do it?"

"I don't think there's anyone else who can," said Milo. "So...what does she have to do, Delbert?"

Doppler cleared his throat. "Well, assuming that the interface works the same way as the Treasure Planet one did...I suspect that all you have to do is move the marker for Atlantis into the Sapphire Deeps over here. There's some kind of mechanism here where your crystal fits into the socket, but it doesn't respond to my touch."

"Oh." Kida reached out to the plinth where her royal crystal was anchored in the socket. "Well...perhaps it will work for me."

Her hand touched the crystal, which lit up at once, a hair-thin beam of brilliant blue projecting out to the star at the heart of the map. Doppler watched spellbound as she turned her wrist, apparently meeting some resistance before there was a clicking sound and the crystal began turning. The socket had been set inside a series of circular rings, one fitting inside the other with such astonishing precision that they appeared to be one solid surface. But it was clear now that it wasn't, and the laser-like blue line being projected through the crystal began moving through the map as the rings turned. Kida tried moving her wrist in another direction, and with another clicking sound another ring slid smoothly into motion, shortening the beam when turned one way and lengthening it when turned back the other.

"Amazing," Milo breathed. "The hand of the Queen _does_ show the way."

"Whoever wrote that book of yours knew what they were talking about," said Amelia. "Though I must admit that I'd have preferred a few more literal statements and less by way of cryptic metaphor."

Milo snorted agreement. "You're telling me. You know, you can spend weeks translating something but it's only when you see it in action that you appreciate it..."

"You're doing well, ma'am," said Aurora, watching the blue line making its way through the map towards where Doppler had pointed out the motes of the Sapphire Deeps.

"Thank you," Kida turned the crystal again. "It is strange...somehow, it is as if I know what to do."

"Perhaps you once saw your father doing this?" said Milo. "It must be another part of the Atlantean royal legacy. You're just like the ancestors who built this device."

Kida laughed. "I appreciate the – what do you say, the 'vote of confidence.'"

"I suppose this means we'll soon get to find out if your theories about how Atlantis moves are correct, Delbert," Amelia said.

"No need," said Doppler. "Well...not if I'm right, after all. The universe will move relative to Atlantis, not the other way around. In fact, in a very real sense, Atlantis won't move at all. We'll just...cease to be here because we'll in fact be in the Sapphire Deeps. There'll be no acceleration and no inertia. I think. Or hope. I mean, it _is_ all just theory to me. I'm not a hundred percent sure I actually understand it."

"You don't?" Milo looked around, alarmed.

"The 'why' is not as important as the 'what', in this particular case," said Amelia briskly.

"There." Kida positioned the guiding beam in the midst of the Sapphire Deeps. "Now what?"

"Just a moment, please, your majesty." Aurora was standing at the edge of the platform near the cluster of blue lights, examining them closely with a delicate brass calliper in her hand. She used it to take the distance from the end of the beam to the nearest stars and consulted her notes. "Perhaps a little to the left? And a little further down, too."

"We can't risk jumping the city too close to a star," Doppler explained. "The spacetime distortions of their gravitational field might have...unwanted effects."

"Such as what?"

"Such as us ending up in the middle of it," Doppler looked awkward. "This is one of the reasons I'd have preferred to know how this all works. Of course, it's possible that Atlantean technology compensates for the effects of gravity on spacetime, but I can't be sure, and I'd rather not take the chance. So we need to move the city into clear space. Close to one of the stars, but not too close."

"That certainly sounds sensible to me," said Kida, adjusting the beam of light. "How does that look now?"

Aurora took another careful measurement and nodded. "Looks all right to me, doctor. It'll drop us in between the Lambda and Epsilon Sapphires."

"Their orbital paths are stable enough," said Doppler. "All right. Let's do it."

"Yes," said Kida. "But...how?"

"There must be some other control on that plinth," said Milo, kneeling to examine it. "Or some other way to move your crystal."

Kida shook her head. "If I turn it, it moves the line. And if I take it out, I fear it will shut off the map completely."

"Well, then," said Amelia. "It sounds like there's only one other thing to try."

"Pressing it in," agreed Kida. She took a deep breath. "Well. Here goes nothing."

She applied a gentle pressure to the crystal pendant. It resisted for a moment before there was another click, and it slipped into the plinth up to the golden ferrule which held it. The beam winked out, but a bright light now emanated from within the plinth, shining out through the concentric rings and creating a pillar of radiance that reached up to the distant ceiling. The map spun around it, the brilliant pixels breaking apart like a million starbursts, flowing around each other, swirling and then recombining. When they came back together, the blue pinpoint of light that represented Atlantis had moved and was now sitting squarely in the middle of the region of the map which Doppler and Aurora had so painstakingly reorganised.

Amelia raised an eyebrow. "Was that it?"

"Er. So it would seem." Doppler blinked.

"Did it work?" Milo peered at the map. "I kind of expected to feel...well, something."

"It worked," said Kida, holding up a finger. "Listen."

They paused and did so for a long moment. Eventually Doppler broke the silence.

"I don't hear anything."

"Precisely," Kida looked at him. "It has stopped raining."

"Or perhaps," said Amelia, catching on, "we're now somewhere it hasn't been raining..."

Aurora was already hurrying down the stairs and across the floor of the great chamber to the door. They saw her dart through it, and then heard her triumphant shout from beyond.

"Ma'am! Doctor! We've done it!"

Doppler and Milo both started towards the stairs together, bumped into each other, stood back to give way and then belatedly remembered that they were in the presence of flag rank and royalty as their more agile wives dodged around them. They traded long-suffering glances and then followed as quickly as they could manage. They found Aurora standing atop the pile of rubble, staring enraptured out into space beyond. Kida and Amelia were alongside her in a moment, their own faces taking on similar expressions of wonder. Milo scrambled up to join them, whilst Doppler cautiously edged his way around the edge of the pile and peered out of the hole in the wall, keeping his feet firmly on the floor and trying to avoid the puddles that still lingered despite the fact that there was no rain falling now. The sight he saw took his breath away.

"My gods," he murmured. "It's the Sapphire Deeps."

The sky had changed completely. Where there had been dark, glowering clouds and sheets of falling rain, there was now spotless sky-blue infinity. In that azure void hung a dozen stars, spheres of shining cobalt.

"Looks like it worked, Delbert," said Amelia.

Doppler nodded, awestruck. "Yes...yes, it does."

Aurora slid down to join him, smiling. "So I suppose we did it, then."

"Well, credit where it's due," said Doppler. "You did most of the celestial mechanics and astrometry."

"Under your supervision," Aurora pointed out.

"I think congratulations are in order to both of you," interjected Amelia, dropping down neatly behind them.

"I'll say," said Milo. "That's another legend confirmed, then."

"So...what happens now?" Doppler looked up at Milo, who looked briefly uncertain.

"Well...I guess now it's over to us. Right, Kida?"

Kida nodded. "Yes. Now we must set the Heart to restoring its energies."

Amelia grinned. "Then I hope you've been doing your homework, Dr Thatch."

"I've been reading little else for the last fortnight," said Milo. "' _And lo, the Heart did ascend into the heavens and drew upon the essence of the light.'_ That's what the Shepherd's Journal says. Unfortunately it drew its description from a transcription of an ancient Atlantean ritual, so it's even more cryptic than usual. But there's no suggestion that there's any kind of mechanism involved like there was with the navigational system in the Chamber of All Things. All I know for sure is that we have to be close to a star."

"How close?" Amelia looked at him.

"I don't know. How close can you even get to one of these stars, Delbert?"

"Closer than you'd think," said Doppler. "The reaction of the dark matter cores in these stars isn't well-understood, but they have very little by way of endothermic radiation emissions."

"Little by way of what?" Kida frowned at the unfamiliar words.

"He means that they don't give off much heat, ma'am," said Aurora. "They're cold stars. Look at how many of them we can see in the sky just from here. If they were normal stars, with a normal thermal output, we'd all be dead by now and the sea would be boiling away. So there's no trouble in getting close to them. In fact, we're going to be getting quite close to the Lambda Sapphire as its orbital path takes it overhead."

"If they don't give off heat, just what _do_ they give off?" Milo looked puzzled. "I thought stars were hot by nature."

"Well, some of it's in visible light, obviously," said Doppler. "Plus a few other traces up and down the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from radio to the ultraviolet. But their detectable emissions account for just a fraction of their total energy production. The rest of it...we don't know. But I suppose the Atlanteans did, and they built the Heart to tap into it and store it. A whole new kind of energy produced by dark matter fusion. Dark energy, you could call it."

"Is that what the Procyons used in their ironclad ships with their dark matter fuel?" Amelia raised an eyebrow curiously. "I had no idea they were that clever."

"No, nothing so sophisticated," Doppler waved a hand dismissively. "They used dark matter fission, not fusion. A far cruder process. It's much less efficient and produces a different energy pattern that contains a lot more heat."

"As interesting as that is," Kida said, looking up above them. "You may want to see this. Something is happening to the Heart."

Milo scrambled to join her and saw for himself. "The stones are changing their orbit!"

Doppler raised his head and squinted. The ring of carven stone plates that circled the Heart were moving faster and spiralling perceptibly inwards.

"I didn't think it would react so quickly," he said.

"Nor did I," said Kida.

"I suppose now would be a good time to mention that the Journal also mentioned that, ' _the city slept in twilight until the Heart returned from the light_ ," said Milo quietly.

"What does that mean?" Doppler blinked.

"It means," said Kida. "That we need to get back to the city right now. They were ready for the city's movement. They will not be expecting this."

* * *

 _The sudden appearance of Atlantis and its asteroid field in the midst of the Sapphire Deeps displaced several million cubic metres of air, unleashing a strong but short-lived squall of wind in every direction, strong enough at close range to dismast a ship or shred its sails._

 _It didn't bother the Dreadnought. With no masts to break, sails to ripple or flags to flutter, its iron hide showed no sign as the gust blew over it._

 _Soulless, unblinking eyes looked again from the armoured superstructure towards the blue stars that lay ahead. They saw what had changed. Analytical programs came to life. They registered the presence of the asteroids and of the city, but paid the wonder no further heed. But they also saw the bright light that shone above it all, and focused on it with single-minded purpose._

 _Thrusters flared briefly as the Dreadnought changed course towards it._

* * *

Doppler hurried down the stairs, doing his best to keep up with the others as they ran. Kida, Amelia and Aurora had already disappeared ahead of them.

"What...what's the matter?"

"It's the Heart," said Milo. "That bit about the city sleeping in twilight? That means that when the Heart goes to recharge from the star, it stops providing its energy to Atlantis. I've seen it before – when the Heart's too far away, it stops working."

"Oh." Doppler understood. "Will that be a problem?"

"I hope not, but we'll need to tell everyone to be ready for it," Milo paused on a landing to draw breath. "Boy, do I wish we had one of those flying machines with us now..."

"Even I'm seeing the advantage," Doppler admitted. "But we must be nearly there now. I recognise some of these walls."

"Not far now." Milo nodded. "I guess we'd better keep going."

Footsteps echoing back up the stairs, they set off once more, following the curving descent until it emerged into a room of the palace. It was already apparent that Kida had been spreading the news, as blue-robed servants were moving quickly and purposefully on new missions of their own. They found Kida on the great terrace outside, speaking with a knot of Atlantean worthies in tones that sounded like reassurance. Amelia and Aurora were a short way off, in conversation with Constantine and the _Providence_ 's other officers. As Milo went to join Kida, Doppler was fielded by an impatient-looking Audrey.

"So what the hell is happening now?" she demanded. "First I'm told we're not allowed to use the flying machines, then the sky changes, then the Heart starts spinning all crazy."

"Oh. Well, the first part is because Atlantis is now in the Sapphire Deeps," said Doppler. "As for the second part...well, I suppose that's why we're here now. I think the Heart is reacting to the presence of the blue stars."

"And what does that mean?"

"Er. Good question," Doppler scratched his ear. "Hopefully that it's about to start recharging. But Milo says that when it does, it'll turn off all the power in the city."

" _Ni modo_ ," Audrey waved a hand. "At least we're not in the middle of something at that old ship I've been working on..."

Kida and Milo joined them as the group of Atlanteans they had been speaking to dispersed. Doppler looked around at them anxiously.

"Is everything all right?"

"They are going to tell the people not to panic," said Kida. "But it will still be a nervous time. Are you sure that it is the stars causing this?"

Doppler looked up and shaded his eyes. "Well, the stone panels have been changing their orbit faster and faster since the Lambda Sapphire began approaching...at this rate, it should be right overhead in just a couple of minutes."

Milo looked and saw that one of the blue stars was visibly far bigger in the sky than the others. The panels around the Heart, meanwhile, were still spinning faster and circling ever closer to the great crystal.

"I guess we won't have to wait long to find out..." he murmured.

Amelia arrived and nodded to them. "I've just told my officers that there's nothing to worry about. Events aren't about to make a liar of me, are they?"

"I sincerely hope not." Doppler watched the panels move closer to the Heart and begin angling inwards at the base, as if forming a bowl supporting the radiant crystal. They were spinning so fast now that it was almost impossible to tell one from another as the sapphire star tracked overhead and passed above the palace. As it did so, a beam of light erupted from the Heart as if pinning the star to the sky. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, the Heart began to rise along the beamline.

"The Heart did ascend into the heavens," recited Milo. "Just like it said."

Amelia glanced at the crystal around Kida's neck and saw that its glow was fading as the Heart rose still higher. "And there goes the power. Also just like you said."

Audrey fished out her own pendant and watched the shine go out. "Right on schedule. Good job you told everyone not to use the flying fish today."

The Heart was already distant now, visible mainly by the dark blue of the stone panels as the Heart itself was lost against the glow of the star. As they watched, the glow intensified, concentrated, and a second blue beam now speared down from the star, meeting the heart in a flash of brilliance so bright that they had to close their eyes for a moment. When they opened them again, the beam was holding steady, drawing the light of the star down towards the Heart.

"Incredible," breathed Doppler. "Perhaps it's some sort of graviton induction mechanism..."

"Whatever it is, it looks like it's working," said Milo.

"How long will this take?" asked Amelia.

"The Journal refers to the twilight lasting three days and three nights," said Milo. "But there could be all kinds of variables there. It might depend on how depleted the Heart's charge was, or how strong the star it's drawing on is, or how far the Heart has to travel to reach the star."

"Still, it's an estimate we can work from," said Amelia. "I don't suppose you can think of any clever ways to measure it, Delbert?"

Doppler took a moment to shake his head, transfixed as he was by the display above. "N-no. Nothing. The amount of energy being transferred every _second_ must be phenomenal."

"I expect the Heart will take what it needs and then return to Atlantis, ma'am," said Aurora. "The city seems to know what it's doing, even if we don't."

"Well, then." Amelia smiled. "I suppose that means that you've done it."

"Done what, ma'am?"

"What we came here to do," said Amelia. "We came to find Atlantis and recharge the Heart. It would seem that you've accomplished both."

"Oh." Doppler blinked as if he hadn't thought of that, as in fact he hadn't. "Yes. Now that you mention it."

"Then Atlantis is saved," said Kida.

"Well, let's not count our chickens before they've hatched," said Doppler. "But...assuming that Lieutenant Mayflower is right about the city's automated systems...I suppose everything has worked out."

"So it has. And so it will." Kida smiled. "Though I am unsure what your domesticated birdlife has to do with it."

"Er," Doppler looked at Milo, who grinned apologetically.

"Sorry. Atlantean's a universal root language, but idioms don't necessarily translate."

"What do we do in the meantime?" asked Aurora. "You said three days and nights, didn't you, Dr Thatch?"

"Well, according to the Journal, there was a twilight festival," said Milo. "To celebrate the Heart's renewal. After all, the Heart kind of _is_ Atlantis. So it's kind of like the city itself is being reborn."

"I think we can manage that." Kida put her arm through Milo's and smiled at him. "It has been a long time since we had something so important to celebrate."

"Another tradition restored," Milo smiled back. "I guess there's no time to lose!"

* * *

Atlantis was awash with light. Not the gentle light of the Heart, or the all-pervasive ethereal day, or even the aura of energy that now hung above it as the blue star poured its energies into the great crystal, but with the fiery yellow light of beacons and lanterns. Every street was strung with them and the carven stone braziers atop many of the city's towers had been lit, sending flames and sparks leaping into the sky. Below them, the city's broadest boulevard had been commandeered and turned into the site for the Twilight Festival. Long tents had been set up down the centre and sides and crowds of people moved between them, Atlantean and Imperial mingling, talking and celebrating. Music drifted over the scene from a platform that had been set up in the central tent, where Amelia had brought the brass band from the _Providence_ to play a selection of Imperial songs – albeit with strict instructions to avoid the more ribald shanties lest any of the spacers in the crowd be tempted into singing along or explaining what they meant to the Atlanteans. Tables were set up to hold the plentiful food that had been put out, but most Atlanteans seemed to prefer sitting on the low benches or ornamental mats and cushions that took up much of the rest of the space. Even Kida, despite her exalted position, chose the latter, placing her amongst her people albeit on a mat of unusual fineness.

"I must say," Amelia said to her, "your people did well to turn all this on at such short notice."

"It is the least we could do," shrugged Kida. "We owe you a great deal. You have given us a future."

"I'd call it a joint effort, at least," said Amelia. "Certainly if we count Dr Thatch as being on your side of things."

"Perhaps so," Kida smiled at her husband and passing him a bowl of cooked fish.

"Oh, absolutely," said Doppler. "Without Milo's translations of the Journal, we'd have been all at sea in trying to work out how any of the mechanisms functioned."

"And without your science, none of that would have mattered anyway," said Kida.

"Well...I suppose it's a question of the chicken and the egg, really," said Doppler. "I'm just happy we could help."

"Again with the domesticated birds?" Kida looked at Milo curiously.

"He means it's impossible to say which came first or was more important," said Milo hurriedly.

"Ah." Kida smiled. "Well, yes. Though I trust you will take no offence when I say that I hope we will not have to rely on your help again. Ever since you arrived, we have learned more about ourselves than I had known had been forgotten. Perhaps, in future, Atlantis will once again be able to take care of itself."

"I'm sure it will," said Amelia. "It has two strong hands on its tiller and two very wise heads to guide them. You and Dr Thatch have already worked miracles here. Though I hope _you_ won't mind if I say that it would be a pity if this were the last time that Atlantis and the Empire sat and worked together."

"Now that we know where to find you, and how to reach you, I am sure we will have occasion for meeting in future," Kida agreed. "But Atlantis is not yet ready to rejoin the galaxy."

"Nor do I believe that the galaxy is ready for Atlantis," Amelia remarked. "But...it would be well to maintain a friendship until that day finally comes."

"It shall be done," Kida nodded.

"But carefully," Milo held up a cautionary hand. "Uh, I mean, no offence, Admiral, but that secrecy I urged when we left? I really think it's important to maintain that. If people know that Atlantis not only exists but is still alive-"

"You needn't worry, Dr Thatch," Amelia assured him. "My report on this mission will be seen only at the highest of levels. Perhaps four other people will ever see it, and one of them will the Queen herself. As far as most of the Empire will be concerned, Atlantis will remain what it is right now – a collection of old spacers' stories circulating around the tables of the bar at Nelson's Port. And my report will make very clear that Atlantis is to be left in peace."

"Can you be sure they'll do that, though?"

Milo's concern was interrupted by applause as the Imperial band finished their last piece and began vacating the improvised stage. Their place was taken by an Atlantean ensemble, who began setting up their array of percussion instruments.

"I'm fortunate to have the favour of the First Star Lord," Amelia smiled to Milo. "He's a good man."

"Well, _he_ may be," said Milo. "But what about his successor? Or yours, for that matter? Atlantis might have to stay hidden for centuries yet. That might be no time at all for an Atlantean, but who knows if there'll even _be_ an Empire in two or three hundred years."

"I think we have to trust her," Kida took Milo's hand gently. "It would be wrong to ask her to lie for us."

"I'll be making the point that Atlantis won't be able to be found unless it wants to be," said Amelia. "You'll be in no danger."

"And I believe you," said Kida. "I only hope that, when the time comes for us to return for good, we will find an ambassador as understanding as you."

"I'm hardly a diplomat." Amelia smiled modestly. "The fate of things will always depend on good people. Atlantis is fortunate to have some of its own at its helm."

"And you say you are not a diplomat," Kida smiled back. "I am glad that you will be staying for a few days longer at least."

"Until the Heart is recharged," Amelia nodded. "There may be more work for our dear husbands, depending on how it works."

"I'll be poring over the books in the meantime," said Milo. "I _think_ we've covered everything, but we might have overlooked something. The smallest clues can provide the biggest insights."

"And I trust that you will not be bored either?" asked Kida.

"As if such a thing is even possible here," grinned Amelia. "Actually, with your permission, I was planning to take a tour of the asteroid field with Ms Ramirez. She has the idea that there may be salvageable parts from some of the wrecked ships out there. They may even help her work on the Atlantean ship she's been trying to restore."

"What a good idea," said Kida.

"Er," Doppler held up a hand. "It is safe, isn't it? I mean...the Leviathan's still out there."

"It only attacks ships coming in from outside," said Kida. "Besides, it knows you now. And if Audrey is there with her crystal, any misunderstandings are certain to be resolved."

"I'm not sure how long a 'misunderstanding' between the Leviathan and a longboat would last," said Doppler nervously.

"It'll be perfectly safe," Amelia patted his hand. "Besides, unlike yourself and Dr Thatch, Ms Ramirez and I are somewhat redundant around here until the Heart's recharged. We might as well go and do something potentially useful."

"I suppose I see your point," Doppler sighed. "But...be careful, won't you? It's not just the Leviathan. The whole asteroid field's like a shooting gallery. Nothing's in a stable orbit. And there are rocks out there that wouldn't even slow down if they hit you."

"I'll be taking our best coxswain," Amelia assured him. "And besides, if a few rocks are the biggest concern, there can't be that much out there to worry about!"

* * *

The longboat slid neatly through the asteroid belt, nimbly taking a course through the clouds of splintered, drifting rock. Audrey was propped up on one knee in the bow, a telescope to her eye as she scanned the nearby wrecks for any indications of promise. Amelia sat amidships, content merely to feel the slipstream in her hair for the first time in the weeks since they had arrived at Atlantis. Behind her, Petty Officer Cartwright, the _Providence_ 's senior coxswain, sat at the helm, one of Audrey's junior engineers beside him tending to the engine.

"Do you see anything of use, Ms Ramirez?" Amelia called.

"Not yet," Audrey shook her head. "Though I suppose it would help if I knew what to look _for_. We need a power source so I can start testing that old Atlantean ship's circuits."

"I suppose using solar sails won't work? There are plenty of spares in storage."

"I thought of that," Audrey shook her head. "But we don't have a cable long enough to run down into the valley. So if you see one lying around out here, let me know. Either that or some kind of self-contained power cell. But don't ask me what either would look like."

"We might have to land if we're looking for cables," said Amelia. "And I think we'll need more hands than just the four of us to strip one if we find it."

"Well, most of the engineering crew haven't got much else to do until we put back to space," said Audrey. "It would give them something to do."

Amelia pointed to a wreck drifting a short distance away. "That looks more intact than most."

Audrey turned her telescope to it. "Yeah, but it's the front end. Any power cells or useful cables are more likely to be at the back. Looks like we've drawn a blank."

Amelia looked up. "And we're approaching the edge of the asteroid field. All right, Mr Cartwright. Bring her around to port and take us back in on a new angle of approach."

"Aye, ma'am. Hold on, everyone." Cartwright turned the tiller and the small craft tilted as it began banking and curling back into the heart of the rocks. Amelia enjoyed the view as the perspective changed and brought a particularly dense cluster of large asteroids into sight.

"We should head for that," she said. "Gravity will have drawn any particularly large pieces of debris towards it. Take us in slow and low, Mr Cartwright. And everyone keep your eyes open for drifting fragments."

"Aye, ma'am!"

The longboat curved towards the cluster, where half a dozen building-sized chunks of jagged rock turned lazily around each other in their own private dance amid the wider asteroid field. A handful of shipwrecks hung in the vicinity, spinning in their own orbits. Audrey surveyed them critically as they approached.

"Looks like a couple of possibilities over there. Can you bring us in closer to the deck of that larger one?"

Cartwright nodded. "Can do, ma'am."

The longboat slowed as Cartwright throttled back the engine. The wreck Audrey had indicated was sizeable, almost as long as an Imperial frigate. Its bow was broken off and scorch marks on the hull indicated a long-ago fire, but most of it was broadly intact. Amelia tried not to think of what terrors had befallen its luckless crew and focused entirely on the problem of spacemanship at hand.

"Towards the stern, coxswain," she said. "The bridge deck looks strong enough for a landing place."

"Aye, ma'am." Cartwright adjusted the throttle again. "Bringing her in nice and gentle.'

"Prepare an anchor line, engineer," Amelia nodded to the other spacer. "We'll make it fast to the taffrail."

The ship was close enough now to make out the individual planks of her decking timber. Amelia was mentally counting down the range, until a shadow fell across them and blotted out the details.

"All stop, Mr Carwright!" she shouted. "Hold here!"

"What the hells is that?" The engineer was staring aft and above them, eyes wide with shock.

Amelia didn't reply at once, instead taking the time to study the shape of the shadow on the wrecks before them. Then she turned her head slowly, part of her already knowing what she would see. The shadow had been dreadfully, sickeningly familiar to her.

"That," she said, before her head was fully turned. "Is a Procyon Dreadnought."

An iron giant was hovering above them, metal flanks pitted and rusted, dark windows leering from its sides like the eye sockets of a skull. Amelia shivered as the shadow deepened.

"I think we should be getting out of here," said Audrey quietly.

"No. Wait." Amelia held up a hand as she studied the ship. "It's a derelict. No smoke from the funnels. A slight lateral drift. No lights. Plus, of course, the four of us are still alive."

"You're right." Audrey raised her telescope and scanned it. "No movement. No signs of life."

"And no signs of damage, either," said Amelia. "I suppose it hasn't encountered the Leviathan yet."

"Maybe the Leviathan doesn't know it's here," said Audrey. "It's totally silent. Just drifting."

"I think you're right." Amelia nodded. "Coxswain? Take us towards it. There should be an access hatch amidships on the starboard hull."

"Ma'am?" Cartwright blinked in surprise.

"You heard me." Amelia reached down to a locker set under her seat and opened it, withdrawing a laslock pistol. "We need to investigate this. Find out how it got here. Bring us alongside. Ms Ramirez? Do you fancy taking a walk with me?"

Audrey nodded and gathered up her toolbelt. "Right you are, ma'am."

* * *

The air inside the Dreadnought was stale and tasted of metal on the tongue. Amelia sniffed it cautiously.

"I'm damn sure _that_ 's not quite right," she said. "Something's wrong."

"There's no life support systems," said Audrey. "Listen."

Amelia cocked an ear. There were no sounds audible beyond the occasional distant creak of metal which suggested temperature changes as the huge structure drifted through space. "Of course. You're right."

"And not just life support," Audrey pressed her ear to the nearest bulkhead for a long moment. "No hay _nada_. I can't even feel anything like an engine or a powerplant working, let alone hear one. This ship's completely dead."

"Then we should head aft," Amelia nodded along the darkened corridor. "That's where we'll find the engine room, the bridge...and maybe even someone who can tell us what's going on here."

She checked the power cell of her pistol and turned to the boat crew. The small craft had been pulled up against the iron hull of the Dreadnought and Cartwright and the engineer were nervously tying it to a mooring point by the hatch. "You two stay here with the boat. I imagine we'll be back shortly."

"Aye, ma'am." Cartwright nodded hastily. "We'll be here."

"See that you are." Amelia turned back to Audrey. "Ready, Ms Ramirez?"

"Always." Audrey picked up a pair of electric lanterns and passed one to Amelia. The yellow beams of light probed the darkness ahead of them as they set off down the corridor, footsteps raising metallic echoes. There were lightbulbs screwed into caged fixtures at periodic intervals, but all were dead. Audrey unscrewed one experimentally and connected a piece of equipment from her belt to the socket. She watched a small gauge on the device and shook her head.

"There's no voltage," she said. "The circuit's cold."

"Good." Amelia frowned into the gloom ahead of them. "What do you suppose the odds are of any crew still being on board?"

"Pretty minimal," said Audrey, disconnecting the instrument. "The air's breathable and the temperature's not too bad, but with no power there are no supplies. No refrigeration to preserve food, no condensers to collect water. They probably wouldn't last more than a few weeks."

Amelia looked down. Her boots were leaving visible prints in a fine layer of dust that covered the floor, but the beam of light her lantern projected caught only a handful of floating motes. "And nothing's walked here for a good long while."

"Precisely."

"As comforting as that is," Amelia went on, "I can't help recalling that anything up to half of the crew on these ships was comprised of robots..."

"No power, no robots," Audrey shrugged. "They run off the same electricity everything else does."

"I sincerely hope so." Amelia paused as they approached a door and raised her pistol. "Because we just reached one of the crew quarters..."

"Are you sure?" Audrey squinted at the row of angular Procyon script above the door.

"Positive," nodded Amelia. "All Dreadnoughts were built to the same basic pattern. This should be the gunners' mess for the number two starboard turret."

Audrey stepped past her and gripped the circular wheel to open it. "Wanna take a look?"

Amelia nodded, gripping her weapon tightly. Audrey moved to spin the wheel, only to find it partially stuck and able to shift only with a loud metallic squeal that echoed painfully in the silence of the ship. Amelia winced and looked through the door as it opened a crack.

"Well," said Audrey. "I guess if that noise didn't get anyone's attention, we really are alone here. Especially since that means this thing hasn't been oiled in months."

"So it seems," said Amelia. "There's nobody home. And not just that. It looks like nobody was _ever_ home. The bunk beds are there, but there's no mattresses, no blankets, no pieces of clothing."

"Maybe these quarters just weren't used?"

"Unlikely," Amelia shook her head. "That would have meant leaving one of the ship's main weapons unstaffed. I don't think they'd do that."

"You said that these ships carried a lot of robots," said Audrey. "Maybe the turret's run by them?"

"No. The robot crew always work under supervision from the living crew," Amelia stepped back from the empty room.

"But if there is no living crew..." Audrey began.

Amelia nodded. "I fear you may be right. There should be an entrance into the turret a little further on. Then we'll find out for sure."

The corridor ran on for another ten metres or so before its flat, sheer wall gave way to a gentle curve. Amelia ran her hand over it knowingly.

"It's the turret barbette," she said. "The armoured silo it sits in. Reaches all the way from the top of the hull to the keel. We're about halfway up, so this should be one of the shell hoist rooms."

"And here's your entrance," Audrey pointed her lantern at a circular hatch set into the wall. "Shall I do the honours again?"

"If you would," Amelia nodded.

Audrey braced herself and turned the circular handle. To her surprise, this one span easily and soundlessly in her hands, and the door swung back on its hinges with ease despite being at least a solid foot of thick, riveted steel plates.

"That wasn't like the crew quarters," she said. "Someone's been maintaining that one."

Amelia nodded again and stepped quietly through. The interior of the barbette was silent and dark. As she'd suspected, most of the space was taken up by the huge shell hoist mechanisms that lifted the heavy shells from the magazines deep below up to the turret above for loading into the guns. Two such shells sat in the cradles, gleaming a dull bronze in the light from their lanterns. She stepped forward and felt her foot connect with something on the floor, which shifted and clattered. In a flash she had redirected the beam of her lantern and levelled her pistol at the obstruction. Audrey's light fell on it as well.

"It's a robot," the engineer climbed through to join her. "Well, now we know who kept that door in working order. And swept the floor in here. Look, there's no dust at all."

"Quite right." Amelia took a deep breath and tried not to betray any signs of how her heart had jumped into her mouth when she'd nearly tripped over the fallen thing. The robot was a dark copper with a stubby cylindrical head. It appeared to have just collapsed, its splayed limbs giving it an eerily corpselike appearance at first glance. Audrey knelt next to it and connected her electrical meter to an exposed cluster of wires.

"No power," she said. "And yet, it's obviously been moving. Recently."

"As have these others." Amelia panned her light around the room, locating five other recumbent mechanical forms. "They're all at their action stations. It's like they were working as normal when the power failed and just left them wherever they happened to be. I'd wager it'll be like this all over the ship, too."

"I think they're running off trickle charges," said Audrey, disconnecting her meter. "It would explain why they were moving but are dead now."

"What?"

"It's like..." Audrey waved her electric lantern. "All right, so you know when the batteries in one of these things run down? So you turn it off and leave it for a while. And then, when you switch it on again, the light comes on bright for a moment and then fades away? That's what I mean. Except, you know, bigger. I imagine the ship hasn't got much fuel left, so it must be running on emergency batteries by now. Just like a lantern."

"So how long will each period of...light last?" asked Amelia.

"Don't know." Audrey shrugged. "Not long. But it managed to get here, so..."

"Long enough," said Amelia grimly.

"Right," said Audrey.

Suddenly, the gloom above them was broken by the flickering of a fluorescent light. It was dim and fitful, but it persisted, and others soon joined it, filling the barbette with blinking, ghostly glows. Amelia looked up, one eyebrow arched sharply.

"And...is there any way of telling just when one of these cycles will start?"

"Well, I'd say that the lights coming on is a bit of a clue-"

There was a sharp chattering noise from somewhere within the robot's chest that cut her off and grabbed her attention. Horrified, Audrey looked down and watched its steel fingers twitch and its eyes flicker as its cylindrical head slowly rotated to look at her, red pinpoints starting to glow in the lenses of its eyes. Jerkily, unsteadily, it reached out an arm towards her.

"Uh, Ameli-"

There was a flash of light and the robot collapsed back to the floor, a hole still red-hot around the edges seared through the bronze of its head. Audrey looked around and saw Amelia holding her smoking pistol in her hand.

"I think," she said, "it's time to go."

"I'm right behind you." Audrey scrambled to her feet and set off after Amelia as they began hurrying back the way they had come, slamming the barbette door behind them. All around them now were short buzzing and clicking sounds as as electricity flowed back into the Dreadnought's circuits. Audrey and Amelia began running, dodging past the twitching piles of machinery on the way back to the longboat.

"Ma'am!" Cartwright and the engineer were still waiting but had clearly noticed the changes in the Dreadnought. As they helped Audrey through the hatch and into the small boat, the engineer noticed that the engine was already humming at full power, ready to pull away at a moment's notice. The spacers piled in behind her, followed by Amelia, who slammed the hatch closed.

"Full speed, coxswain!" she shouted. "Get some cover between us and that ship!"

"Aye, ma'am!" Cartwright opened the throttle and dived away towards the nearest asteroid. The slipstream blowing in her hair, Amelia looked over her shoulder and saw clouds of smoke emerge from the Dreadnought's twin funnels.

"Do you think they saw us?" asked Audrey, trying to see whether any turrets were turning to bear on the speeding longboat.

"I think we'd be dead by now if they had," said Amelia, who had already seen that there weren't and noted how the big ship's bows straightened up as its engines engaged. She turned her head, eyes narrowing as she followed their line to what she saw was its ultimate destination. "But we need to get back to Atlantis. Because that thing's heading straight for them."


	7. Chapter 7 - END

By the time the longboat returned, twilight had fallen. A hurried council was convened in Kida's audience chamber, the comforting glow of the lanterns doing nothing to lessen the seriousness or the urgency of Amelia's message.

"It's the thirty-seventh Procyon Dreadnought," she said. "The last Dreadnought. The one that was meant to be surrendered to us but went missing. Remember that message from the _Ambuscade_ just before we reached the Timaeus Cluster?"

"Oh. Yes. Of course." Doppler blinked as his memory supplied the information. "Well...I suppose if it left Procyon space around the time of the armistice, it _would_ have had enough time to sail here..."

"But why would it do that?" asked Milo. "It couldn't be to find Atlantis. We weren't even here at the time."

"Perhaps it chose a destination at random?" suggested Audrey. "It's running on automatic. Nothing but robots on board."

"Or perhaps it's looking for fuel," said Doppler slowly, turning the idea over in his mind. "Dreadnoughts run on dark matter, so I expect its sensors began looking for concentrations of it. And the Sapphire stars are fuelled by dark matter themselves. They must have appeared to be the most obvious source of energy...up until Atlantis arrived."

"What do you mean?" Kida looked alarmed. "This ship is now looking for us?"

"That's what I'm afraid of," Doppler nodded. "You see, I theorised that the Heart of Atlantis was forged from the same dark matter crystal as the cores of the Sapphire stars. Except probably even more dense. So the Dreadnought would have seen it and started heading for it."

"But that's insane," said Milo. "What does it think it'll do when it gets there? Mine the stars for dark matter?"

"That doesn't really matter," said Audrey. "It's a machine run by machines. It's following very simple instructions, not following some kind of grand plan or thinking about the future."

"And one of those rules," said Amelia, "will be to preempt and eliminate any obstacles. I'm afraid, Kida, that Atlantis will be under attack no later than tomorrow morning. What forces do you have for defence?"

"Forces?" Kida shook her head. "We do not have 'forces'. We are not a military power."

"You must have something," said Amelia. "Dr Thatch told us about a battle against Rourke's mercenaries, and I've seen your warriors around the palace."

"They are guards only and have no weapons that would be of use. And, yes, some of our flying machines have such devices," said Kida. "But they are small and few in number. And they cannot fly beyond the city."

"And I'm not sure they'd do much good anyway," said Milo. "Not against something like a Dreadnought."

"Is there nothing else?" Amelia pressed. "What about the Shield of Atlantis? I recall you mentioning it before, Kida."

Milo shook his head. "It needs the Heart to be charged before it can be raised. And even then..." he looked at Kida nervously. "It may take a great sacrifice to activate it. And even if not, there's no way we can be sure it'll be ready in time."

"It may be our only chance," said Amelia. "If the Dreadnought reaches the city – there's nothing that can stop it."

"What about the Leviathan?" asked Kida. "It has stopped every other intruder for eight thousand years."

Amelia took a deep breath. "I don't think we can count on it. I've seen single Dreadnoughts scatter entire squadrons before them. Even this one, degraded as it must be, is still probably the most powerful ship in the galaxy right now."

" _But the Consul's brow was sad,_ _  
_ _And the Consul's speech was low,_ _  
_ _And darkly looked he at the wall,_ _  
_ _And darkly at the foe._ _  
'_ _Their van will be upon us_ _  
_ _Before the bridge goes down;_ _  
_ _And if they once may win the bridge,_ _  
_ _What hope to save the town?'"_

The verse came unbidden to Doppler's mind as he listened to the conversation with all its sense of impending doom. Poetry seldom featured in his thought processes, but the sombre drama of the situation had obviously appealed to something in his subconscious.

"We must be able to help somehow," Audrey was saying. "I mean...we've got a ship of our own, right?"

"The _Providence_ is armed," said Aurora. "But she's not a proper fighting ship. Her guns are meant for self-defence."

"Under the circumstances, she's all we have," Amelia murmured. "She could at least buy some time. Time for the Leviathan to engage the Dreadnought. Time for the city to activate the Shield."

"But...she'd almost certainly be destroyed!" Doppler stared.

"I'm not saying it's a perfect plan," Amelia looked up. "But it may be all we have. If we can force the Dreadnought to split its fire between two targets...then maybe, maybe there's a chance we can stop it."

"What about your crew?" Kida looked concerned.

"I'll offload them here. If the worst happens, they can at least help to defend the city," said Amelia. "A company of bluejackets and a platoon of Royal Marine light infantry isn't much of an army, but they'll serve better than none."

"But then who will be on the _Providence_?"

Doppler hadn't asked that, because he didn't need to. Amelia glanced at him and took a deep breath.

"I will be. The ship's controls can be centralised and we can leave one of the longboats on board as an escape craft."

"You can't seriously mean to go out there alone?" Milo was shocked.

"Not quite. I'll still need someone to steer the ship." Amelia turned to Aurora. "You know the _Providence_ better than anyone, flag-lieutenant. Are you ready to go very much above and beyond?"

"With you, Admiral. Always." Aurora nodded, but there was fear in her lilac eyes.

" _But then spake brave Horatius,_

 _The Captain of the Gate:_

 _'To everyone upon this world,_

 _Death cometh soon or late._

 _And how can one die better,_

 _Than facing fearful odds,_

 _For the ashes of their fathers,_

 _And the temples of their gods?'"_

Doppler found himself smiling as his memory supplied the rest of the verse that had occurred to him. Amelia noticed it and looked at him curiously.

"Delbert? You look like something has occurred to you."  
"Hm? Oh. Yes. But it's nothing." Doppler shook his head. "Just remembering something I read once. An old legend about a very similar situation."

"Then I hope it had a happy ending," said Amelia.

"Oh, it did." Doppler smiled again. "Macaulay was a dramatist, but he knew how to turn a phrase."

"I don't know what the hell you're on about or who this Macaulay is," said Audrey. "But if that thing needs stopping, I'm not staying behind. The _Providence_ is my ship, too. And if you're going to go and get into a fight, you might need your engineer."

"I was hoping you'd volunteer, Ms Ramirez," Amelia nodded her thanks. "Aside from anything else, I thought we may be in need of your crystal pendant in case the Leviathan takes a dislike to us."

"I cannot ask this of you," said Kida quietly. "You are proposing to sacrifice...everything. For us."

"There's a measure of self-interest in this as well, Kida," Amelia pointed out. "That Dreadnought won't discriminate between your people and mine. If it gets here, we'll all burn together."

"Yes, but-"

"You're not asking anything of us that we wouldn't do anyway," said Amelia. "We're all playing our parts here. Milo's studies led him here. Delbert's science brought us back. But now we're in _my_ world. I won't pretend that it's a noble one, but it's a world that I know. We can't run. We can't negotiate. So we fight. With our backs to the wall and with every fibre of our beings. There's nothing else we can do."

"I'm sorry to say that I think you're right." Doppler swallowed nervously. "I certainly don't see any other option."

Amelia nodded, trying to hide her emotions at her husband's support. "Sadly so. We'll offload everything we can that'll be of use – weapons, supplies, the longboats, medical equipment. It won't be much, but it'll be better than nothing."

"What do we do if the Dreadnought gets through?" asked Milo.

"You hold the line." Amelia looked up and met his eyes. "With all your strength and for as long as you can. Just make sure that your people are as far out of the line of fire as you can."  
"There are still a few deep-level shelters intact," said Kida. "I will direct as many people into them as possible. And there will be other places in the city where they can hide."

"Good." Amelia nodded. "I'll have my crew prepare defensive positions in cooperation with your guards. I don't expect much in so little time, but every little bit helps."

"Then...it would seem that all our paths are clear." Kida stood, her face sad but her eyes determined. "And we had all better make our starts. There is much to do."

* * *

Constantine was the last one down the gangway. He snapped to attention when he reached Amelia and saluted crisply.

"The ship is ready, Admiral. All but one of the longboats has been disembarked and all systems are centralised at your disposal. The ship's guns are loaded and awaiting charges."

Amelia returned the salute. "Very good, Lieutenant-Commander. Tell the crew to release the mooring lines. The ship's steady on thrusters, is she not?"

"Aye, ma'am. She is." Constantine nodded.

"Then proceed."

Amelia watched him go, calling orders to the spacers who stood by the thick mooring lines where they were anchored to the ground. Then she turned to Doppler. Her heart went out at the sight of him, clearly nervous but trying to appear brave, a rifle slung across his shoulders.

"Amelia..."

"Delbert." Amelia stepped towards him, almost reaching out with a hand. "I...trust that everything's ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Doppler nodded. "I'll, uh...be joining the ground forces defending the palace. If it comes to that, I mean."

"Let's hope it doesn't." Amelia gave a small smile. "And...you'll be careful, won't you?"

"As careful as one can be under the circumstances." Doppler tried to grin. "You know me, Amelia. I'm not exactly the reckless, heroic type."

"Reckless...no, thank the stars. But heroic?" Amelia cocked her head. "Don't underestimate yourself, my dear."

"So you keep telling me." Doppler's grin faded. "But...you'll be careful as well, won't you? Because I happen to know that you _are_ the reckless, heroic type."

"I won't take any unnecessary risks," Amelia assured him. "It's not just my life, remember. Aurora and Ms Ramirez are with me as well. And whatever chances I might take personally, I will always look after my crew."

"I know that very well." Doppler smiled.

"Mooring lines cast loose, ma'am," Constantine returned and touched his hat to her.

"Very good, Mr Constantine. Carry on." Amelia returned the salute and reached out to shake her first officer's hand. "The ship's company is yours now."

"Thank you, ma'am." Constantine took her hand. "Good hunting."

"And to you, Tobias." Amelia turned back to Doppler and gave a shrug. "Well...I suppose I'd best be off."

"Of course." Doppler took a deep breath and forced himself to smile. "I wish you luck."

"Keep some for yourself." Amelia smiled back and turned to go.

"Oh, and Amelia?" Doppler suddenly stepped towards her.

"Yes?"

"I love you." Doppler smiled simply and shrugged. "I...didn't want to part without saying that. The last time you sailed off to war, I didn't get the chance, and then you nearly didn't come back. So I wanted to say it now."

"Oh, Delbert." Amelia's voice caught. "I love you, too. I hope you always know it, no matter how far apart we are."

"Of course I do." Doppler took her hand. "But it's still nice to hear it from time to time."

"I'll make sure you always do." Amelia smiled softly and kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, but the reason it took Doppler a moment to realise it was happening was because she so seldom displayed such affection in public for fear of diminishing her stature as Admiral. He knew it was a measure of how serious their situation was that she was doing it now and he tried not to let those fears cloud his eyes as she stepped back again, her hand trailing over his as they broke contact.

"Good luck, Delbert. Truly."

"And to you, Amelia."

Amelia looked at him one last time before she forced herself to turn and march up the gangplank. Aurora and Audrey met her at the top.

"Standing by to cast off, ma'am," said Aurora, saluting

"Very good, navigator." Amelia returned the salute, noting the nervous look in the younger felinid's lilac eyes as she did so. "Stand to your station. Status, engineer?"

"Ready when you are, boss," said Audrey. "Main drives and thrusters at your discretion."

"Then let's not waste any more time." Amelia turned on her heel and strode towards the bridge. "Take up your stations and let's get this ship into the sky."

A movement behind her made her look around and she saw a familiar white-uniformed figure emerging from the main companionway behind the one remaining longboat. Despite a brief flicker of annoyance, she smiled at it wryly.

"If you're trying to stow away, Surgeon-Captain," she said, "you're doing a terrible job."

Gray wrinkled her nose and patted the leather satchels over her shoulders before drawing out her notebook. I WAS COLLECTING THE LAST OF THE MEDICAL SUPPLIES.

"Of course you were." Amelia walked over to her. "I should have known you'd be preparing right until the last minute."

Gray nodded. AS ARE YOU, I HOPE.

"I'm not sure I follow you?"

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE GONE INTO AN UNWINNABLE BATTLE, Gray pointed out, alluding to Amelia's sacrifice of her previous flagship during the Ironclad War's climatic battle.

"I most assuredly haven't forgotten that," Amelia said.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU THINK YOU'LL GET AWAY WITH IT?

Amelia's eyes dropped for a moment. "I'll settle for once more," she said quietly.

Gray appraised her for a moment. AS YOUR PHYSICIAN, she wrote, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND ANY MORE THAN THAT.

"Fates willing, I shan't need more than that." Amelia said. She held out her hand. "I won't say goodbye, but I will say thank you."

Gray took her hand and shook it firmly, meeting the felinid's eyes squarely. YOU'RE WELCOME.

"Ma'am?" Aurora called from the bridge. "We're standing by."

"On my way, flag-lieutenant." Amelia let go of Gray's hand and gave her a nod. "Look after them all for me, Eleanor."

Gray nodded and turned to go, slipping Amelia a folded note as she went. Amelia took it, knowing that her old friend had a habit of leaving her most heartfelt sentiments in such a format, and tucked it securely into her coat pocket as she went to the bridge. Aurora saluted as she arrived.

"Awaiting your orders, Admiral."

"Broadside and ventral thrusters, Ms Mayflower," she said. "Take us clear of the terrace. Ms Ramirez? All ahead one-quarter as soon as we're clear. Let's go and start the show."

* * *

From the base of the stairs leading down to the great terrace, Doppler watched as the _Providence_ pulled away and headed out over the city, the wash from its engines rippling his coat even at this distance. He sighed and adjusted the sling of the heavy rifle around his shoulders, looking up as Dr Gray approached him and gave him an economical nod of greeting.

"Dr Gray." Doppler nodded back. "I thought everyone had already gone."

Gray shook her head and showed him the page of her notebook. I WAS COLLECTING THE LAST OF THE MEDICAL SUPPLIES.

"Ah. Right. So I see." Doppler noted her heavy satchels and then looked back at the disappearing ship with a deep breath. "Do you think she'll be all right?"

Gray watched the ship for a moment as well, and took out her pencil to reply.

HER PROGNOSIS IS FAVOURABLE.

"I hope you're right." Doppler sighed again.

I AM UNCERTAIN AS TO HOW THE NEW VARIABLES FACTOR INTO OUR WAGER. I AM WILLING TO KEEP THE ODDS THE SAME AS I DOUBT EVEN YOU COULD RUN THE NUMBERS QUICK ENOUGH.

Doppler managed a grin. "Thank you for the consideration."

Gray stood for a moment. Reassuring small talk had never been her forte. Fortunately, Doppler rescued her from her plight by coughing and shaking his head.

"Well. I suppose my standing here and watching isn't going to help her. Or me, for that matter."

The surgeon shook her head. Doppler shrugged.

"I suppose I'd best be off. No doubt you have somewhere to be as well."

Gray nodded. I HAVE SET UP AN AID POST.

"Then good luck to you." Doppler gave her a small smile and turned to go. "I hope you won't be busy."

GOOD HUNTING.

Doppler looked wryly at the traditional naval parting. "Thank you. But I'm not really worried about what's going to happen here. It's what's going to happen out there that bothers me..."

* * *

Aurora looked behind them as _Providence_ cleared the edge of Atlantis and headed out into the open space between the city and the asteroid belt. Somewhere behind them their comrades were taking up positions and awaiting the outcome of the duel of the giants in the skies above them, anxious eyes straining through telescopes. She hoped they wouldn't let them down and turned to see that Amelia was also gazing aft. The Vice-Admiral's face was as impassive and professional as she had ever seen it, but she couldn't help wondering whether her superior was having thoughts along the same lines as her own.

"Do you have a plan, ma'am?" she asked, trying not to let her nerves show.

"Not precisely," Amelia admitted. "One could hardly invite the Leviathan for a captains' conference. No, I suspect that we'll have to let events take their course and do our best to support it."

"It's not going to be much," said Audrey. "We'll only get one shot from each of the guns without reloading them."

"It'll have to do," said Amelia, turning away from Atlantis. "And speaking of the guns, Ms Ramirez, I'd be obliged if you set them to full charge."

Audrey crossed to the fire control console and hit a switch. "Good to go, boss."

"Excellent." Amelia folded her arms behind her back. "Turn starboard zero-seven-one, Ms Mayflower. I expect that the Dreadnought will be coming straight in."

"Zero-seven-one, aye, ma'am." Aurora turned the ship's wheel.

"What kind of speeds are we capable of, Ms Ramirez?"

"Whatever you say," Audrey shrugged. "We've got a complete set of sails up so we could burn the engines at maximum if you like."

"I wouldn't recommend that, though, ma'am," said Aurora urgently. "Straight line speed is one thing, but we can't afford to build up too much inertia out there. Once we're in amongst the rocks-"

"Yes, I take your point." Amelia nodded. "Ahead two-thirds, if you deem it appropriate."

Aurora nodded. "Two-thirds, aye. We'll just have to keep an eye out for any large asteroids heading our way."

"I fully intend to be keeping two eyes out for everything," said Amelia, producing a telescope. "And I suggest that you do as well, Ms Ramirez. It would be best if we see the Dreadnought before it sees us. And if either of you spots the Leviathan, all the better."

"Right you are," Audrey found a telescope of her own and put it to her eye. Aurora watched the others start scanning the sky before she shook herself and concentrated back on her own task, trying to control her breathing and her heart.

* * *

The ground defences had been prepared as well as they could be. The largest and most open of Atlantis's beaches had been identified as the most likely landing ground, and Constantine and Tansley had deployed the bulk of their meagre forces there. Soldiers had dispersed into position amongst the ruins and rocks that led to the white sands, and a shallow trench dug where the ground permitted it covered most of the rest. Doppler saw the defenders taking up positions, Imperial spacers, red-coated marines and Atlantean guards standing side-by-side, as he made his way towards a stubby tower at the foot of a spur of natural rock that had been commandeered as a headquarters. He stepped aside to let a messenger run past him on some urgent calling, and nearly tripped over Milo who was sitting on a block of stone nearby.

"Oh, Milo! I'm terribly sorry; I didn't see you there."

"No harm done, Delbert." Milo stood up and gave a thin smile. "I hope we'll still be able to say that by the end of the day."

"Yes. Of course." Doppler took his meaning. "Well...there's nothing to do but see. Are you and Kida all ready?"

"Everything's prepared, if that's what you mean," said Milo. "But 'ready'...well, how can you be ready for something like this?"

"I wish I knew." Doppler sighed. "I know it seemed to come naturally to Amelia, but I promise you that it doesn't. It gets harder for her every time."

"And for you?"

"It's never been easy." Doppler patted him on the shoulder. "At least we won't have long to worry about this one. It's the worrying that's the worst part."

"Well, you say that," said Milo. "But I'm not sure that it's really all that much worse than the part where people are dying all around you. I've been in one battle. And that was one too many."

"I've been in two," said Doppler. "Well, three, in a way. And I only saw one of them coming, and that was by far the least pleasant."

Milo gave him a wry look. "Do you ever stop and think to yourself, 'damn it, I'm a scientist, what the hell am I doing here?'"

"Almost every day," Doppler smiled.

"You seem to be handling it well."

"I've had to learn ways." Doppler reached into his pocket and produced a battered, leather-bound notebook, which he opened to show Milo several closely-written pages of numbers. Smudging on the earlier entries suggested that they were at least several years old.

"What's all that?" Milo craned his head to see.

"Odds. Of Amelia coming back alive." Doppler flipped through the pages. "Years ago, just after Amelia and I started seeing each other, I was worrying myself sick every time she sailed so I decided to rationalise it and actually put a form to the risks that I could understand. So I started calculating the risks, calibrating for consequence and likelihood. I have no idea whether I was ever really right or not, but...she always came back."

"That doesn't look like your writing there," Milo pointed. "And what does it say? Twenty crowns?"

"That's Dr Gray's." Doppler closed the book. "She found out about it one day when she was convalescing at our residence after an injury. She made...well, I suppose you could call it a kind of wager with me. I guess it was her way of helping."

"It all sounds kind of morbid to me," said Milo. "But...whatever helps you. I can see that putting some kind of structure around it would help to deal with nameless fears."

"Precisely." Doppler smiled. "Oh, and I should have said...I'd be obliged if you didn't mention this to anyone. Amelia doesn't know...and I'd rather she didn't."

"Of course." Milo promised. "You can trust me."

"I know." Doppler hefted his rifle. "Well...I suppose I'd better get into position."

"Where will you be?"

"I don't actually know. Nobody's really told me. I suppose I was just going to pick somewhere with a good view of the sky." Doppler patted his coat pocket. "I borrowed a telescope from Mr Pike and I was hoping I'd be able to watch Amelia."

"Well, you'd be welcome to join Kida and I right here." Milo waved at the headquarters tower. "Kida was quite the warrior before, but now that she's Queen she has other responsibilities."

"I'd be glad to." Doppler smiled. "Thanks, Milo."

"Right." Milo tried to give what he hoped was a confident smile and then turned towards the staircase that spiralled up the outside of the tower. "See you at the top?"

"I'll be there directly."

Doppler lingered a moment, looking out towards the beach, before he began following Milo. Although he often had to step aside to allow a hurrying soldier by, he always returned his gaze to the sky behind him.

* * *

"I see something!" Audrey pointed. "Over there! Off to the left!"

"I think you mean 'port', Ms Ramirez," Amelia looked around and raised her telescope. "But you are in fact right."

"Where away, ma'am?" Aurora turned her head.

"Red three-zero-four," Amelia said. "But maintain your heading, Ms Mayflower."

Aurora obeyed, but couldn't stop glancing off to port, where she saw a distant movement. "Aye, ma'am."

"It must be the Leviathan," said Amelia. "I hope you have that pendant handy, Ms Ramirez?"

"Wouldn't have left it behind." Audrey fished it out and patted it. "Well, I suppose that answers one question. Now we just need to know where the Dreadnought is."

"Assuming that it held a steady course, it should be three points off the starboard bow." Amelia focused her telescope. "And it would appear that the Leviathan agrees with us. It's heading straight there."

"Shall I move us onto a parallel course, ma'am?" asked Aurora.

Amelia nodded. "Good thinking, navigator. Proceed."

Aurora span the wheel and the tender's bow began swinging to starboard. "Steadying on a converging heading now."

"And there's the Dreadnought," said Audrey quietly.

Amelia snapped the telescope to her eye. The giant warship was emerging into view, its twin hulls clearly silhouetted by one of the sapphire stars. "Yes, I do believe you're right...range about three miles, I'd say."

Aurora strained her eyes, trying to see. The Leviathan spotted it before she did and the familiar roar of its challenge vibrated through the ship. Off to port, she saw the enormous machine surge forward from behind an asteroid, enormous claws raised and eyes blazing.

"Resume your position at fire control, Ms Ramirez," said Amelia.

"Right. Probably a good idea." Audrey closed her telescope and stepped back. Amelia kept hers raised, a frown of concentration marking her forehead as she observed. Aurora slid the ship past a drifting wreck and hoped it wasn't a bad omen.

"Is everything satisfactory with you, Ms Mayflower?"

Aurora realised with a start that Amelia had addressed her without taking her eye off the Dreadnought. "Oh! I mean, yes, ma'am. All systems functional."

"Excellent." Amelia snapped her telescope closed. "Then push the engines to all ahead full."

"Ma'am?" Aurora hesitated. "Er...with respect, ma'am, that'll get us to the Dreadnought before the Leviathan..."

"I know," said Amelia. "We're going to draw its first salvo. Those main guns take the best part of a minute to reload, and longer if they're not fully powered. If we time it right, the Leviathan can hit the Dreadnought before it's able to fight back..."

Aurora swallowed hard. "Y-yes, ma'am. All ahead, full."

"And try not to worry too much, flag-lieutenant," Amelia gave the younger felinid what she hoped was a confident grin. "You've seen Dreadnoughts in action before. They handle like wallowing ursines at the best of times. You'll be able to run rings around it."

"Aye, ma'am," Aurora nodded. "I'll do my best."

The _Providence_ didn't respond as promptly to the throttle as the _Lyonesse_ had done, but the acceleration was still noticeable as Aurora pushed the levers forward on the engine control. She returned both hands to the wheel, conscious of the asteroids still around them even though the largest appeared to be safe distances away. A thump and tearing sounds from above drew her attention upwards and she saw a torn rag of sail flapping loose.

"Mizzen skysail damaged, ma'am! Must have been a small rock drifting."

"Understood," said Amelia. "It shouldn't affect us, should it, engineer?"

"Not a chance," said Audrey. "You've got every scrap of canvas open. The sails are pulling more power than the engines need even at max."

"Then hold her steady, Ms Mayflower," Amelia nodded to her. "Take us in. But stand by to take evasive action at my command."

"Standing by, ma'am. Any time." Aurora returned her focus to the Dreadnought ahead of them. There was no doubt that it had seen them – the great grey ship had been slowly manoeuvring to bring its broadside to bear on the oncoming Leviathan but it now reversed direction, laboriously turning back to the _Providence –_ more laboriously than usual, Amelia noted with interest. Another bellow came from the Leviathan, as if it was aggrieved at being ignored, and it increased speed as it surged towards the intruder.

"Any time..." Aurora repeated to herself.

"We'll be in range of its guns any moment now," said Amelia. "Take evasive action the moment you see the muzzle flashes but not a second before. Or, preferably, after. Is that clear?"

"Clear, ma'am." Aurora nodded. The Dreadnought's turrets had settled into position, the barrels of their guns like a series of black holes pointing at the _Providence_ as it charged towards them. Amelia glanced off to the right and tried to judge the range to a large slab-sided asteroid that was drifting lazily.

"How hard would we have to turn to get into cover behind that, Ms Mayflower?"

"It depends where we start, ma'am, but _hard_ ," Aurora took her eyes off the Dreadnought for a moment to see.

"I can set the baffle plates in the main engine exhausts to manual control," said Audrey. "If I reverse the port baffles and open the starboard ones, that should get you a sharper turn. I mean, the engines aren't meant to be used like that, but-"

"Make it so," said Amelia briskly. "We're justified in running risks here. Speaking of which-"

She was cut off mid-sentence as the Dreadnought opened fire, haloes of flame and smoke erupting from its guns. The wheel was a blur in Aurora's hands even before the sound of the shots reached them. The ship lurched violently and Amelia heard the masts and rigging protesting vigorously at the abuse, but it worked – as she had hoped, the Dreadnought's robotic crew had aimed their salvo based on calculating the _Providence_ 's course and speed – the sudden last-second alterations were just enough for the pattern of fire to miss them, passing harmlessly less than twenty metres off the bow. The Dreadnought's shells, each weighing more than half a ton, were clearly visible as they sliced through the air.

"Well done!" Amelia called. "Resume original heading! And where's the damned Leviathan got to?"

"It's coming, ma'am!" Aurora could see the mechanical beast plunging towards the fight from the Dreadnought's starboard quarter, claws open.

"About bloody time." Amelia folded her hands behind her back. "Then take us in, flag-lieutenant. And next time they fire their main guns, go hard-a-starboard and get us behind that asteroid. Ms Ramirez? Stand by on baffle controls."

"No problem." Audrey moved to the engineering console and began flicking switches. "Ready when you are, Aurora."

The Dreadnought's light secondary batteries were now in range, and began firing from armoured gunports lining its flank. Smaller and faster-firing, they were harder to evade and their shells were soon falling around the _Providence_ with dismaying accuracy. The ship shook as explosions blossomed on her port flank and part of the foremast shrouds separated with a crack as their mounting took a direct hit. One of the forecastle carronades was hit and exploded in a flash of sparks, but it was clear that the tender's speed was providing some degree of protection against a more concentrated bombardment. Amelia's gamble that the Dreadnought wasn't manoeuvrable enough to follow them was paying off so far, but it was only a matter of time before the odds turned against them.

"Come on, you bastard," Amelia muttered, watching the Dreadnought's turrets turning to track them. "Come on..."

She didn't have to wait long. The guns fired again and Aurora wrenched the wheel over as Audrey activated the engineering controls. The note of the ship's engines changes as the exhaust flows were redirected, yanking it around hard with a scream of tortured timbers. A loud snap sounded the demise of the upper mainmast, which plunged over the side, taking two sails with it. Fighting to keep the ship in balance through a turn it had never been designed to make, Aurora wrestled with the rudder until she felt enough stability return to bring the ship around behind the designated asteroid.

"Cut engines! All stop!"

Amelia strode past her and watched the Dreadnought trying to follow them. Its thrusters flared and its rudders squealed as they scraped around, but the immense ship's inertia carried it onwards right into the path of the Leviathan. Too late, it finally appeared to recognise the danger from the Atlantean monstrosity and smoke plumed from its funnels as it tried to come about, its turrets belatedly reversing their turns. For its part the Leviathan simply roared again and dived into the attack, one claw shearing off a smokestack and the other ripping a jagged furrow through the superstructure with a shriek of tearing metal. Pirouetting with an agility that utterly belied its size, the Leviathan turned and opened its mouth, a white-hot beam of energy spearing out to punch a hole in the Dreadnought's hull.

"Looks like we did it," said Audrey, watching in awe as the titans clashed.

"So it seems," said Amelia pensively. "Damage report, Ms Ramirez. Quick as you can."

"We're down sixteen percent on sail power," Audrey checked her displays. "Of course, as we were drawing too much before, that still leaves us on about ninety percent engine capacity. Port bow carronade's gone, of course, and the foremast's relying on its mounting to stay upright."

"Well, I suppose that could be worse." Amelia looked over and met Aurora's eyes. "Status, navigator?"

Aurora smiled, knowing that she wasn't just asking about the ship. "Fully operational, ma'am."

"Excellent." Amelia smiled back. "Bring us around into position to observe. We may need to intervene again before this is all over."

"Aye, ma'am. Thrusters firing."

Amelia turned and looked back to the distant glow of Atlantis, and took a deep breath.

 _And hopefully_ , she thought _, this will all end out here rather than back there..._

* * *

"What is happening?" Kida was looking anxiously up at the sky.

"I...I'm not sure." Doppler hurriedly adjusted his telescope. "The Leviathan's fighting the Dreadnought. The _Providence_ turned away...I can't see her any more..."

"They're probably hiding," said Milo. "I mean, that was the plan, right?"

"I hope so," Doppler winced at the sight of the Dreadnought's muzzle flashes in the telescope's lens. "But I hope that's all they're doing. They came under a lot of fire on the way in, before the Leviathan got there. Amelia just charged straight at it..."

"I am sure she had her reasons," said Kida.

"That's right," Milo gave Doppler an encouraging look. "I'm sure she's fine, Delbert. She's a professional at this stuff, after all."

"She's one of the very best," sighed Doppler. "I just wish she wouldn't keep _proving_ it."

"So do I." Kida dropped her eyes. "This should never have happened."

"It's no one's fault, Kida," said Milo. "We had to come here. To save Atlantis. We couldn't have known that... _thing_ was out here as well."

"My father took Atlantis out of the universe to save it, and to serve the penance for the violence we had committed," Kida murmured. "Now we come back into the universe to save ourselves, and we find violence on our doorstep. Is this the galaxy now? The Empire, the Procyons? Pirates who use the secrets of the ancients to rob and pillage the present?"

"Well...yeah. I guess it is." Milo put his arm around her shoulders. "But it's not all bad. After all, I'm from here, too. And I'm all right."

Kida gave a small smile. "Yes. I suppose you are."

"And Delbert, too. And Amelia. There's still a place for friendship, and loyalty, and love. And courage. Look around you, Kida. All these people, ready to fight to protect this place. I know you wish they didn't have to, and so do I...none of us wanted this. But there they are. And that courage has to mean something more than some kind of failure."

"You are right." Kida took his hand and squeezed it. "I only hope that we are worthy of that courage."

"We will be." Milo promised.

There was a sudden yelp from Doppler that made them both look up. "Delbert! What's happened?"

"The Leviathan!" Doppler was staring through the telescope in horror. "I...I think it's..."

* * *

Amelia had kept the _Providence_ at a safe distance from both the Dreadnought and the Leviathan, knowing that there was little she could contribute to the battle and that neither of the metal giants could be trusted to avoid collateral damage. Its fighting style was savage and unrestrained, spiralling and darting about the Dreadnought, lacerating it with its cutting beam and opening deep gouges with its claws as the robotic ship struggled to hit back. The Dreadnought's secondary guns had scored a few strikes but had done no appreciable damage while its heavy turrets had been unable to hold the swift-moving Atlantean machine in their sights. Aurora was starting to think that the Leviathan was winning, and she had almost begun daring to hope when it swept up dead ahead of the Dreadnought and charged it head-on, clearly intending to finish off its damaged adversary. The crash of tens of thousands of tons of metal was almost a physical force of its own and the Dreadnought reeled back for a moment under the impact of the ferocious assault.

But then, even as the Leviathan tore into it, claws ripping through foot-thick metal plates as if they were paper, the great grey ship simply brought its turrets to bear. The range was so close that the muzzles scraped against the Leviathan's underside as the guns elevated. It couldn't miss.

It fired.

Her ears ringing from the deafening sound that followed, Aurora briefly thought that both mighty combatants had been destroyed in the resultant eruption of flame and smoke that burst from the enclosed space between them. But then it cleared and she saw the truth.

"Oh, stars, no..."

The Leviathan was drifting backwards, twisted, broken and venting flames from a dozen wounds in its belly. It convulsed horribly, like a living, wounded beast, its blue lights flickering. The distance between it and the Dreadnought opened up as the warship also drifted back, pushed by the force of the recoil of its guns and the point-blank explosions of the armour-piercing shells.

"It killed it," Aurora stared in shock.

"Not quite," Amelia watched the Leviathan's lights steady on a dim glow. "But I suspect that it will if we don't intervene now. All ahead full, navigator! Get us into the fight and bring the starboard arc to bear."

"Aye, ma'am. All ahead full." Aurora pushed the engine controls forward until they locked into place at near-maximum power and then turned the wheel to slide the _Providence_ past the asteroid that had been sheltering them. She hoped it would be in time – the Dreadnought's lighter, faster-firing guns were keeping up a sustained bombardment of the crippled Leviathan, and the heavy cannon of the main turrets were still turning to keep it in their sights. It was only a matter of time before they reloaded themselves and unleashed a broadside which she had seen cut an Imperial battleship in half at three times the range.

"Bring us in close," Amelia said. "Ms Ramirez? Ready salvo fire on the starboard battery."

"Right you are," Audrey checked her console. "All six locked and loaded."

Amelia's eyes narrowed as the pitted iron hull of the Dreadnought loomed above them. She knew they couldn't hurt it. Even at such close range, it was unlikely that the low-velocity shells of the carronades would do more than dent the war machine. But somehow that made it easier. If they couldn't kill it, they didn't have to. All they had to do was get its attention, and of that at least she was sure.

"Amelia?" Audrey's finger hovered above the fire control switch.

Amelia waited a moment longer, until her eyes could make out the individual rivets on the Dreadnought's hull plating. "All of what we have, Ms Ramirez! Fire!"

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Audrey punched the switch and was immediately answered by a deafening roar as all six starboard carronades fired at once. The explosions blossomed along the Dreadnought's flank but Amelia didn't even bother waiting to see if they had done any damage.

"Hard-a-port, navigator! All ahead, emergency full!"

"Aye, ma'am!" Aurora span the wheel with one hand and jammed the throttle open with the other. The _Providence_ 's engines roared at the surge in power and the ship juddered briefly as the rudder was caught in the sudden wash of the exhausts. Aurora tightened her grip on the wheel, bringing the tender around sharply and pointing her stern towards the Dreadnought.

"Did it work at least?" Audrey reset her hat on her head and looked back. The Dreadnought was seeming to hesitate before its main turrets began turning again, away from the crippled Leviathan and towards the returned threat of the tender.

"It looks like it," said Amelia grimly. "Evasive action, Ms Mayflower!"

* * *

"Oh, no..." Doppler stared in horror. "They're...they're all alone now."

"What has happened to the Leviathan?" Kida's face was tense.

Doppler panned the telescope over. The Leviathan was still drifting in a cloud of sparks and smoke, ragged spiderwebs of electricity crawling over its shattered plating. "Er...it's not going so well. I don't think it's been destroyed but it won't be much help to them."

"What are they doing?"

Doppler refocused the telescope on the _Providence_. "It looks like they're running...but the Dreadnought's right on top of them. Oh, my!"

He physically jumped as the Dreadnought fired. The telescope was shaking so much that he never saw whether there had been any hits, but by the time he got it dialled back in the _Providence_ was still fleeing.

"They're all right!" he called.

"But for how much longer?" murmured Kida. "They cannot destroy it. And then what will become of us?"

Milo looked over the edge of the tower. Constantine was in hurried conference with his officers and the attitude of the defenders had just changed from one of observing as an audience to preparing to participate.

"Well...I expect that the Dreadnought will be here soon...and then..."

"And then we die," said Kida.

"I'm sure Amelia will have something up her sleeve," Doppler bit his lip. "She...she always does. She always has."

"Or perhaps," said Kida, "There is something I can do."

Milo turned and saw that she was looking up at where the Heart still hung above the city, suspended in the column of energy pouring into it from the star. Kida pulled herself away from the spectacle to share Milo's gaze. They knew what must be done. They knew this was a very real possibility. Milo didn't like it, but there was no other choice.

"Do you think it's ready?" he asked hesitantly. "It hasn't called upon you."

"In times of crisis, the Heart always chooses one of royal blood," said Kida. "Perhaps, in times of crisis, one of royal blood can choose as well."

"Do you know how?"

"I'll ask the Heart." Kida shrugged. "What else can I do?"

Milo looked back to Doppler, who was busy trying to keep an eye on Amelia, then mustered his own resolve. "Then we should go while we still can. Delbert? Are you alright here?"

Doppler nodded. "Go. And good luck."

Milo gave him a nod of thanks and turned to go. Kida was already scrambling over the edge of the tower, dropping neatly onto the spur of rock connecting it to the main bulk of Atlantis. He followed her as best he could, his feet occasionally slipping on the loose scree. Kida led them up the spur as far as possible, to the crooked and rocky corner where it joined the central mountain, and then stopped. Milo caught up a few seconds later and joined her in looking up at the Heart, now almost directly above them.

"Do you know how this is going to work?" he asked.

Kida shook her head. "I have no idea. But I can only try."

She began walking forward, raising her hands towards the light as she called aloud.

" _Yobtop! Nishentop Adlantisag! Bernot e kagit, Kidagakash Nedakh!"_

Milo watched the Heart carefully as she addressed it, his mind automatically translating her next appeal even as he strained his eyes to detect any response from the great crystal.

"My name is Kidagakash Nedakh! Twenty-eighth of my line and the crowned ruler of Atlantis! In the name of my ancestors, I call upon you!"

She stopped, the echoes of her voice dying away as they waited for any sign of reaction. When there wasn't one, she stepped forward again.

"Atlantis stands in peril! Your people stand in peril! I call upon you to extend your protection over us once again!"

Milo kept gazing upwards. Was it his imagination or had the circle of plates orbiting the Heart changed their spin somehow?

"By my blood and by my crown, I am joined with you!" Kida shouted, before her voice fell away to no more than a whispered plea. "Please...help us..."

Above them, the orbiting plates suddenly stopped. A beam of light speared down from the Heart, illuminated Kida like a spotlight. Her hair and robes began to flow around her as she lowered her arms and turned to face him. He stopped and drew up short as he saw her eyes, which were suffused with the pale blue glow he knew so well.

"It is done, Milo." There was an echo to Kida's voice, as if she was now speaking as part of an unseen choir.

"I know." Milo lowered his hand. "Go make it count."

She was already rising through the beam of light, a motion that accelerated as she went higher until she was just a mote against the greater brilliance above. Milo watched until she vanished, and then turned to look back down the spur. Anxious as he was, he saw with a surge of pride and hope that it was working. All around the perimeter of Atlantis, the great sentinel statues were raising their arms.

* * *

On the _Providence_ , Audrey caught the flash of light in her peripheral vision and looked over to the city. She fumbled for her telescope for a moment and then put it to her eye for a moment.

"Admiral? I suggest we go back to Atlantis."

"The Dreadnought will follow us," warned Aurora.

"I know. But they're about to raise the Shield." Audrey pointed. "That's what those statues are for. I've seen that shield stop an asteroid storm. It can stop anything. If we're on the outside when it goes up..."

Amelia listened, watching the Dreadnought as it came after them through the asteroids, still trying to bring its guns to bear. A rock drifted across its path and was smashed rudely aside, splintering into fragments and powder as one of the metal ship's twin bows slammed into it.

"It may be our only chance," she murmured.

"Ma'am?" Aurora looked at her in puzzlement.

"Turn us back towards Atlantis," Amelia said. "And hold the engines at full power."

"A...aye, ma'am." Aurora nodded. "Hold on, everyone. This'll be tight."

The ship lurched as she threw the wheel hard over, even Amelia having to brace herself against the bridge railing. The bluff bow swung back to face Atlantis as the Dreadnought fired again. There was an explosion overhead and Amelia saw a blazing cloud of wreckage falling astern.

"They just hit the jigger mast!" shouted Audrey. "We're three sails down!"

"Well, then we'd better keep running," said Amelia. "Navigator? Keep her running straight."

"Straight, ma'am? We'll be a sitting target!" Aurora stared.

"I know," said Amelia. "But we're racing against the clock now, too. And I'm not sure that isn't a deadlier enemy. Keep her running straight."

"As you say, ma'am. She'll be straight as a die." Aurora pulled the lever to lock the rudder into position.

"Ms Ramirez? Set all systems to automatic." Amelia nodded. "Then both of you join me on the main deck."

"Automatic it is." Audrey looked up from her console. "You sound like you have a plan, Admiral?"

"The Dreadnought's chasing this ship," said Amelia, her eyes sparkling. "So we point this ship at that Shield."

"And the Dreadnought won't be able to pull away in time," said Audrey, grinning. "Not bad."

"Er, ma'am?" Audrey was standing by the longboat on the deck. "I think we have a problem..."

The longboat was a wreck. Shrapnel had torn through its engine and shredded its single sail. Audrey jumped down from the bridge and surveyed it, shaking her head.

"It's totalled," she said. "Looks like we're not getting off after all."

"There's still time yet." Amelia looked up. Atlantis was filling most of the horizon now as they raced towards it, the Dreadnought only a handful of ship lengths behind. She could see the towering statues around its edge as they lit up with energy, great hands slamming together and discs of light blazing out from between them as the Shield activated and began spreading. "Get to the bows."

"Right, ma'am," Aurora stood up and staggered as the ship jumped beneath her. A shell from the Dreadnought had buried itself in her stern and blown the aft cabin apart, turning the bridge into a mass of blazing, broken timbers.

"It's got our range!" Amelia shouted, helping her up. "To the bows! Now! And hang on!"

Doppler cast the telescope aside and began running down the tower steps. The blue glow of the Shield was rising as the discs of energy broadcast by the sentinels spread and joined together. The _Providence_ was coming in high, the Dreadnought right behind it. He ran towards the beach, heart in his mouth. He saw a flash of white in his peripheral vision and saw that Gray had left her aid post and was running as well.

"Soldiers and spacers!" Constantine was standing at the top of the beach, sword in hand. "Stand to! Doctor! Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?" Doppler panted. "To my wife."

Amelia stood at the bows of the _Providence_ , gripping the rail. Audrey and Aurora stood on either side of her, watching the Shield coming up as they plunged towards it. The ship shook as the Dreadnought hit it again and again, but none of them paid much attention – sheer inertia would see them reach Atlantis one way or another.

"Talk to me, Ms Ramirez," said Amelia. "You're the only one who knows about that Shield."

"The Shield's coming up slowly," said Audrey. "Must be because the Heart's not recharged yet."

"Hopefully that'll give us a bit of extra time," Amelia forced herself to sound calm. "Range, Ms Mayflower?"

"Perhaps five hundred metres, ma'am," Aurora's lilac eyes were wide with apprehension. "But it's not the distance that's the problem. It's the time. The Shield's already coming together."

"So I see." Amelia glanced at the coruscating sheets of blue energy knitting themselves together in front of them. A salvo boomed out from the Dreadnought, the few shells which missed the _Providence_ spiralling past her to impact on the glowing surface. "And I see that it's as impenetrable as you promised, Ms Ramirez."

"You know me," said Audrey, trying to be lighthearted. "I'm a woman of my word."

"Quite so." Amelia smiled wryly. "Which reminds me...thank you both."

"It's been an honour to serve, ma'am," said Aurora.

Audrey shrugged. "Hey, I had nothing else to do today."

Amelia grinned and looked back to the walls of energy converging across their path. "Well, then...I suggest that everyone holds on to something...here we go."

* * *

The edges of the converging fields sliced through the tender's hull as if it wasn't there, severing the bow just ahead of the foremast. The rest of the ship continued even as the Shield closed entirely, timber frames shattering one after another until, a heartbeat later, the racing engines ruptured and exploded, blasting out a fireball two hundred feet across the curving surface, red flames burning bright against blue energy.

The _Providence_ 's severed bow, trailing smoke, sailed through the air like a comet, losing altitude until it ploughed into the water around a hundred metres offshore, raising a trail of spray as high as its masts had been.

Behind it, even before the fireball of the _Providence_ 's passing had dissipated, the Dreadnought reached the Shield. It had attempted to pull out of its pursuit at the last minute, but its enormous mass and sheer inertia kept it rolling inexorably onwards. Thirty thousand deadweight tons slammed into the Shield head-on, steel and iron crumpling like paper against the shimmering blue surface. It didn't even flicker as the last of the Dreadnoughts died. And this time, the fireball lit up the entire horizon.

* * *

"Amelia!" Even before the fiery remnants of the Dreadnought's death had dissipated, Doppler was running for the beach, passing the spacers and marines in their shallow trenches and dropping his rifle as he went. Gray was close behind him, followed by the spacers and marines as they broke cover.

Aurora was the first ashore. The bedraggled navigator arrived on the sand, partly deposited there by a wave, hauled herself up onto her elbows and threw up a mouthful of water. Gray splashed to her side and held her upright. Aurora coughed and shook her head dazedly.

"No, no...I'm fine, ma'am, just a...just a little wet..."

Gray nodded and looked up to where two other shapes were coming ashore. Doppler was already past her and wading towards one of them, shouting Amelia's name. The surgeon stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled to her orderlies, who hurried over to finish helping Aurora to dry land, freeing her to go after Doppler.

"Amelia!" Doppler reached her and dropped to his knees in the surf to put his arms around her.

"Delbert," Amelia grinned weakly as she accepted his assistance. "Not exactly one of my...gossamer landings..."

Doppler laughed aloud with the release of relief and held her close as he and Gray finished helping her to her feet.

"I'm all right, too," Audrey splashed out of the water behind them, wringing out her hat. "Just in case anyone was wondering."

Amelia chuckled and motioned to Gray to go and help her. "Well...I think we did it."

"So you did." Doppler smiled.

They reached the edge of the water. The orderlies had wrapped Aurora in a blanket and passed others to Amelia and Audrey. The engineer took it gratefully and used it to dry her black hair before looking around.

"Hey," she said. "Where's Milo and Kida?"

* * *

 _It started like it had before; time slowed and a whisper formed in her mind as if it had always been there. In a way it was for the Heart was the heart of every Atlantean. Every Atlantean would merge with the Heart when their time has come, when their body has breathed its last. It was their voices that coursed through Kida's mind. No, not voices. Voice. It was just a Voice that melted mid-breath to another's. Most Kida failed to recognise, though she could tell when a Voice sounded too young to belong, or so old that It barely registered. There were moments when she did recognise the Voice._

 _Her old mentor who had scolded her for avoiding lessons when she was small._

 _Her caretaker who told her tales of old under the light of fireflies._

 _Her mother._

 _Her father._

 _But no voice lingered. They all melted into others, just as others had melted into Them. All were one and the same. Even her own voice joined in, but it was still too soon to be lost. Even if They had not immediately recognised the threat to call to her, They did now for the same phrase was repeated over and over again._

 _Adlantisag gesusekem. We are obliged to help Atlantis._

 _The city stretched before her, Them from their position high above it. Yet even from here, Kida could see each and every Atlantean, feel their fear, hear their words of prayer, of hope. We must save Atlantis._

 _Her, Their eyes turned to look beyond the city to the fires erupting in the asteroid field beyond the shores. She, They saw the Leviathan drifting near-lifeless. Even if She, They called out to it, the war machine would not be able to answer. It has served as well it could._

 _The course of action was clear to Her Them. Power was still pouring into the Heart from the sapphire star above and the process was not yet complete, but needs must. No sooner had the thought occurred to Her Them than beams of light stirred the Sentinels, which slowly began to outstretch their arms, and spread the Shield between them._

 _While it was taking longer than SheThey could recall it should take, it was in time. The wooden ship was cleaved and the metal one obliterated by the uncompromising blue light. It stayed lest there be any new threat to Atlantis. SheThey... They needed to be sure that it was safe. That Atlantis was safe._

 _The minutes ticked by. Was it minutes? It was difficult to say. Time wasn't something of concern to the Spirits. When time came that They were satisfied that Atlantis' welfare was secure, They retracted the Shield and stood down the Sentinels._

 _They._

 _No... not they. She. She. Kidagakash Nedakh. Queen of Atlantis. It almost scared her how complete the Merging always was. Their shared concern for Atlantis and desire to save it allowed them to act as one, but it made her one of many voices to the point where she almost forgot that she was a one. Not an all. As she put herself together, extracting herself from the whole, she felt herself passing back into the physical world, her body descending slowly until she felt something solid grasp her tightly to remind her of the last remaining part of herself._

 _Milo._

* * *

It was some days later.

The Atlantean ship was floating calmly by the edge of the terrace, a large hatchway open in its side and a drawbridge spanning the narrow gap, spacers, marines and Atlanteans moving busily to and fro loading boxes, bundles and barrels on board. Some enterprising soul had got hold of a pot of blue paint and the name _Providence II_ was proudly emblazoned on its nosecone, a name repeated in a row of Atlantean runes underneath it. Audrey, who had scarcely left the ship since it started working again, regarded it with pride, despite the fact that the remains of vines still clung to nooks and crannies in its surface, and then turned to cross the terrace to where the others were waiting. She waved to catch Amelia's attention and touched her hat.

"Ship's all ready, boss," she said. "They're just loading the last of the supplies now."

"Very good, Ms Ramirez," Amelia replied. "And you're sure you know how it works?"

"Pretty sure," Audrey grinned confidently. "I've done nothing but study it since it started working again. The Atlantean crew are quick learners – and of course, Milo's been helping to translate the controls."

"Excellent." Amelia turned back to Kida. "And I should probably thank you again for the loan of your only ship, your majesty."

"Please," Kida smiled. "It's Kida. Especially now. The ship is the least I can do for you. Are you sure you don't need to take it home?"

"I think that would cause more problems than it would solve." Amelia shook her head. "Fortunately we offloaded most of our longboats before the battle. We'll sail your ship within a day or two of the closest Imperial base and then take to the boats. It'll be an uncomfortable few hours, but we'll make it all right. Then we can take a ship back home."

"Will people not ask what happened to your first ship?"

Amelia nodded. "Oh, yes. But the truthful answer will only be known to a handful of people at the highest levels of the Admiralty. As far as everyone else is concerned, she just disappeared. Ships do that from time to time."

"Then I hope nobody will get into any trouble for that," Kida said.

"Well, normally I'd be court-martialled," said Amelia matter-of-factly. "Any commanding officer who loses their ship has to face one as a matter of routine. But in this case, I'm sure their Lordships will waive the rule. It'll raise some eyebrows but it'll soon be forgotten."

"I think they'll have some other things on their minds," said Audrey meaningfully.

"Yes, I expect they'll have quite the revelation." Amelia smiled. "But that's their problem. It won't be yours. I think we've brought enough trouble to your shores for now."

"On the contrary," said Kida. "We owe you more than we could ever repay. Because of you, Atlantis is safe and the Heart restored."

"Well, I think you're owed at least as much credit for all our safety," said Amelia. "That Shield was superbly timed."

"Perhaps so. Though you should not dismiss your courage so quickly, either."

Amelia shrugged. "What's a hard landing between friends? But if you insist on that, I trust that you're not experiencing any ill-effects after your...actions?"

Kida shook her head and smiled. "On the contrary, I have never felt better."

"I'm glad to hear it." Amelia cocked her head. And indeed there was something indefinable about Kida now, a certain regal bearing that the young monarch hadn't quite held before, as if she had absorbed some of the power and dignity of her ancestors. It suited her.

"And as for the Heart," Amelia went on, "I think we have my husband to thank for that particular miracle."

"Yes, where is he?" Kida looked around. The last of the supplies had been loaded and the Imperials and Atlanteans were now mingling freely at the base of the steps, chatting like lifelong friends, exchanging jokes and well-wishes. Amelia cast her eye across the crowd and saw Aurora and Gray apparently in conversation with a robed and heavily-tattooed Atlantean. She saw him pass a small fabric pouch to the surgeon, who nodded her thanks and tucked it into her white uniform coat. It wasn't the first cross-cultural exchange she had seen – more than a few spacers were sporting fresh, bright blue Atlantean tattoos under their uniforms and she knew that a barter system had evolved between her crew and the local people – though she couldn't help an inward smile at seeing it. But then she raised her eyes and found what she was looking for.

"I believe he's over there," she said. "Along with yours."

She turned and pointed past the crowd towards the far edge of the terrace, where two gangly figures were standing side by side, one in a long burgundy coat and the other in Atlantean blue.

"It seems a pity to interrupt them," Kida smiled fondly.

"I'll do it," Audrey grinned. "Can't keep the Queen waiting, right?"

Kida laughed. "You are too kind."

"And I suppose I'd better find my first officer and get my crew into some form of order." Amelia touched her hat to Kida. "Do excuse me for a moment."

* * *

Doppler was gazing out over the city. He wanted to memorise every detail of the sight. Milo, for whom it was familiar, was watching him curiously.

"You all right, Delbert? You seem distracted."

"Oh, I'm fine. It's just that...I wish I could stay," said Doppler. "Stay and explore this world of yours. It's still hard to believe that I'm here."

"I understand that. It still takes me by surprise, too," said Milo. "And I know you can't stay. You've got a family to get back to."

"I know. And I miss them too." Doppler smiled wryly. "I suppose I'm somewhat conflicted at the moment."

"Well...leaving's not a one-way ticket," said Milo. "Maybe in time, when your family's ready, you'll be able to come back."

Doppler laughed. "Maybe. But you and Atlantis'll be long gone by then. Back into the legends, where nobody can find you."

"Well, maybe..." Milo unwrapped a bundle that had been hidden by the folds of his flowing sleeve. Doppler looked down and stared in amazement as Milo held out a small golden orb.

"A map sphere? Milo, I-"

"It'll lead you back to Atlantis from wherever you are," Milo smiled. "The Atlanteans used to say that all paths led back to the city eventually. Maybe yours will, too."

"I...are you sure?"

"Of course." Milo coughed judiciously. "Though obviously Kida and I would prefer that you kept this between you and Amelia."

"Oh, of course." Doppler took the sphere and stowed it carefully in his coat's voluminous pockets. "Nobody will ever know. I promise."

"And it looks like you'll have an escort on your way home." Milo pointed.

Doppler followed his arm and saw the Leviathan, which was patiently swimming to and fro just beyond the perimeter of the city. "So it seems. I'm glad it's looking so much better."

"Audrey says it has some kind of self-repair system," said Milo. "Don't ask me the details."

"Well, that would explain why it's still in working order after thousands of years in space," said Doppler. "I know it's mechanical, but I don't think it's really a _machine_. Not as such. It's something much more. At what point do artificial processes become sufficiently like biological ones that we can say they count as life?"

"I think I'll leave that one to the philosophers," laughed Milo.

"It's a bit beyond my area of expertise as well," said Doppler. "But-"

"Hey! You two eggheads done yakking over here?" Audrey joined them, elbowing Milo good-naturedly and grinning to show she was joking. "Only the big bosses want us all back there on the steps."

Milo turned around. The crowd was dispersing, Atlanteans lining up along the stairs and the Imperial crew falling-in neatly on the terrace under the watchful eyes of Constantine and his officers.

"Oh, right. Yeah. Come on, Delbert."

"Coming." Doppler took one last, lingering look out over the city before he hurried off after the others, crossing the terrace, climbing the stairs and taking up position with Amelia and Aurora. Milo was standing next to Kida and it seemed to Doppler that it was a confirmation that the two worlds which had come briefly together were again going their separate ways. Milo's Atlantean robes were like a visual cue of the separation that was to come. A great horn sounded from high above and the low murmur of conversation from the crowd ceased.

"Travellers from afar!" Kida stepped forward, raising her voice. "You came to this place as guests. You leave it now as friends. Through your actions, Atlantis will stand for generations for come. And for as long as it does, we will remember your bravery. For your efforts, and for your courage, we will be forever grateful. I ask your Admiral to accept this token of our appreciation."

She turned to Amelia with a smile, producing a slender golden chain on which hung a small blue crystal pendant. Amelia stepped in front of her and raised her head, enabling Kida to fasten it around her neck before turning to Doppler.

"And for you, doctor. Without your knowledge, Atlantis would still be facing the twilight."

"What? Oh, right." Doppler hastily stepped forward to accept his pendant. Amelia gave him a cheerful wink as they resumed their places.

"And to you, Ms Mayflower. For helping to unlock some of the secrets of our past." Kida held out a third pendant to the astonished navigator, who stared for a moment before shaking herself and smiling shyly but proudly as she received it.

"I now name you as honourary citizens of Atlantis," said Kida. "I wish you all a good voyage home. Our thanks will travel with you. _Gamok gim kaperomosen kwiyimosuses kagib saldupetokh._ "

"Thank you, your majesty." Amelia bowed. "We are grateful for your hospitality and your assistance in returning us home. I hope that the friendships we have made over the past weeks will endure beyond our lifetimes."

"They most certainly will." Kida promised. "Goodbye, Amelia."

"Goodbye, Kida." Amelia turned to address her crew. "Ship's company! About face! Embark by divisions!"

The spacers and marines began filing off in an orderly fashion, marching towards the _Providence II_ as the ship's band played the naval anthem. Amelia touched her hat to Kida.

"And that's my cue as well, I'm afraid."

"Of course. Take all care." Kida shook her hand and turned to Doppler. "And you too, Delbert. Thank you."

"It was my honour, Kida," Doppler gave a bow and then extended his hand to Milo, who shook it warmly and smiled.

"I can't say anything but thanks again, Delbert," said Milo. "I knew I could count on you."

"Any time." Doppler grinned.

"See you, Milo," Audrey hugged him. "Maybe you'll come back some time? And catch up with the rest of our old crew? Just try not to make it another five years, yeah?"

"I'll do my best." Milo hugged her back. "But if you see them, or if you're in touch with them, give them all my best."

"And mine, too," said Kida. "You are all friends of Atlantis."

"I'll tell them," Audrey nodded. "Well, guess I'd better be getting on the ship, too. You know, since I'm the one who knows how to make it go."

She took her leave and began heading down the stairs. Doppler went to follow her, pausing for a moment halfway down to savour that incredible view one last time. Then he turned and looked up to where the Heart shone brightly over the city once again, its gentle blue radiance blending with the sky. He gave a small smile of satisfaction, returned Milo and Kida's parting wave, and turned back to the ship.

* * *

The air inside _Providence II_ was cool and fresh. On the bridge, Imperial spacers and trainee Atlantean crew stood ready at consoles, each one labelled with a piece of paper with Milo's neat handwriting on it. Aurora was next to the one marked 'NAVIGATION', a glowing cloud of icons hovering in front of her face as she turned and saluted to Amelia.

"Course laid in for Imperial space, ma'am," she said. "Standing by to execute at your command."

"Very good, flag-lieutenant." Amelia returned the salute. "Status report, Mr Constantine?"

Constantine touched his hat. "All stations ready, Admiral."

"Excellent." Amelia turned and smiled at Doppler as he joined them. "Then you may proceed, Ms Mayflower. Let's go home."

 _\- The End -_

 _Thanks to all readers, reviewers and to my co-author, the incomparable and endlessly amazing megers67. She's responsible for pretty much all the good bits of this, and there's more of her work here and on AO3. We hope you enjoyed it!_


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